The Footwear Industry In Italy Is On The Road To Revitalization.

Judging from this year's sales volume, the footwear industry in Italy has a better prospect than before.

Exports are recovering and growing rapidly. This is because Italian company's efforts to develop high-end market exports have been successful, and also benefited from the EU's protective trade policy.

Artioli, chairman of the Italy Footwear Industry Association (ANCI), said: "many shoemaking enterprises have not sold well in recent years, but the whole industry has gone back to the road of revitalization through reflection and adjustment of business models."

Five years ago, the footwear industry in Italy was facing an optimistic outlook.

Exports continue to slump, and share in the domestic market is also declining, and it is accelerating because cheap products from China and other Asian countries have entered the western market in large numbers.

In 2003, Italy's footwear exports to the United States dropped by more than 13%.

Footwear products exported from China to Europe in 2005 increased by 10 times compared with 2001.

Hundreds of small companies in Italy have closed down, and thousands of jobs have been reduced in China.

Faced with this situation, ANCI believes that urgent measures must be taken to adjust the industry, otherwise more companies will follow suit.

Altiori said: "we recognize that Italy's companies must be repositioned and need to diversify and become more internationalized in their vision and focus on a higher level of market."

The association has organized professional training courses to provide companies with advice on how to improve technology, and most importantly, to encourage them to focus on innovation in design and materials, so as to maintain the unique advantages of Italy footwear in the international market.

ANCI is also promoting the international campaign. The slogan is "I love Italy shoes".

In March of this year, ANCI launched a new activity: "golden Italy".

In conjunction with the fashion week, posters of Italy footwear were posted at airports in Milan and surrounding cities, highlighting the high quality and high standard image of the industry.

In the future, outdoor advertisements will also be posted in Moscow, Dusseldorf and Tokyo, and media advertising will be carried out in China, France, Japan, Spain and the United States.

Altiori believes that in the past year, the efforts of the industry have already achieved results.

In the first 8 months of 2007, the total export volume of footwear products in Italy was 4 billion 800 million euros, an increase of 9.6% over the same period in 06 years. A total of 178 million pairs of shoes were exported, a 2.85 percentage point increase over the same period in 06 years, and the average price of each pair of shoes increased by 6.6%.

However, the situation is still not optimistic, because exports to the US fell by 15% during that period.

But Italy is developing new markets.

For example, Russia has now become the tenth largest export market for footwear in Italy, an increase of 26% over the same period in 06.

Italy and other European shoe producers are also the main force pushing the EU to impose tariffs on foreign footwear products, mainly Asian countries, in order to combat so-called dumping.

In October 2006, the European Union decided to impose a 16.5% tariff on leather shoes exported from China, and impose a 10% tariff on Vietnamese products.

Five Chinese companies have filed a lawsuit to cancel the tariff, and the case is still under trial.

Altiori believes that most Italy manufacturers have already withdrawn from competition in the low-cost footwear market and denied that they have benefited from anti-dumping measures, but insisted that tariffs are necessary.

The import volume of Italy shows the effect of tariff.

According to ANCI, in 2007 1-8, the import of leather footwear, which was levying tariffs, dropped by 14.4% from China and 12% from Vietnam.

Imports of footwear products that are not subject to tariffs are still growing.

According to ANCI statistics, footwear imports from China increased by 22.5% in the 1-8 months of 2007, and the average price of each pair of shoes dropped by 4.1%.

Imports from Vietnam increased by 18.5%, on average, the price of each pair of shoes dropped by 12%.

Many Italy shoe companies also want the EU to require labels to produce imported products.

However, retailers from northern Europe objected that it was not in line with consumer demand and was not implemented.

ANCI is still lobbying the European Union for this purpose, and has been supported by some domestic enterprises.