China'S Footwear Industry Has A Long Way To Go

The white town is one of Italy.

The advantage of establishing factories in Italy is to observe and learn the latest and best shoemaking skills nearby.

After occupying the local low-end market, Chinese leather shoes factories have also stepped up their technological level, bought better equipment, and employed a number of key high level craftsmen in Italy to improve their technological level.

And by relying on the brand of Italy, we can create the road of building high-end brands.

With the improvement of production technology level, more and more Chinese leather shoes are beginning to enter the high-end leather shoes market.

Predicament

What happened in the white town is a microcosm of Chinese shoe companies increasingly moving towards the high-end market.

However, when a large number of shoe enterprises began to evolve towards the high-end, they found the difficulties in the traditional shoe market.

After thirty years of extensive and rapid development, China's footwear industry has accumulated a lot of contradictions, and has now entered the period of industrial pformation.

For example, the export oriented footwear industry, in the face of the shrinking international market and the trade protection measures from anti-dumping in major market countries, has a downward pressure on China's footwear industry, and a small number of small businesses have collapsed, and scale enterprises have emerged.

A few years ago, due to rising labor costs, raw materials and exchange rate fluctuations, many shoe manufacturers shifted their production base to Southeast Asia.

With the full start of the China ASEAN Free Trade Area, the footwear industry in Vietnam, India and Pakistan has developed rapidly.

According to statistics from relevant departments, the output value of Vietnamese sports shoes increased by 20.2% in the 1-11 months of last year, and the output value of leather shoes enterprises above China's scale increased by 23.4%. compared with the same period last year, directly following China.

According to a Taiwanese shoe manufacturer, at present, a large number of global sports shoes are in the hands of Taiwanese businessmen. In recent years, Taiwanese businessmen are obviously moving to Southeast Asia and other regions. This is mainly due to customer requirements such as Nike and Adidas. Manufacturers can not focus too much on production in one country or region. They need to diversify their operations. Vietnam's sports shoes orders are growing rapidly. Now the capacity is gradually approaching saturation, and the order of sports shoes is starting to turn to Indonesia and India.

In fact, from the 90s of last century, the footwear industry in Taiwan has been pferred to the mainland on a large scale.

Take the Guangzhou Chuangxin shoe industry as an example, during the rush hour, the shoe factory employees once reached about 20 thousand, but after the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008, the workers were reduced or reduced, leaving only about 6000 people left.

Although, with the gradual release of the crisis, orders quickly recovered, but the Chuangxin shoe industry still maintained its original production scale without the expansion of workers, and there was news that he had quietly pferred some production lines.

Some experts believe that compared with Southeast Asian shoemaking enterprises, the cost competitive advantage of Chinese shoe enterprises is becoming weaker and weaker.

At present, the production facilities of Southeast Asian sports shoes have been continuously improved, and this year, the China ASEAN Free Trade Area has been fully activated. The export of shoe materials from China to ASEAN enjoys tariff free, while Southeast Asian shoe products can enjoy zero tariff entry into the Chinese market. He does not rule out the feasibility of setting up factories in Southeast Asia.

At present, some foreign shoe factories in Dongguan have pferred their production lines.

Many foreign shoe factories, because of the rapid rise in labor costs, and the lack of workers, many foreign shoe factories that are engaged in export sales are moving inland and Southeast Asia.

Nike, Adidas and other international sports shoe giants demand that the cooperative shoe factories set up some European sports shoes production lines in Vietnam, mainly because tariffs are cheaper than exports from China.

Over the past few years, some foreign shoe factories exporting to Europe have shifted to Southeast Asia. However, the pfer of Chinese local shoe enterprises to Vietnam is not obvious, and Vietnam is also suffering from shortages.

"In the last few years, Vietnamese shoes enterprises mainly concentrated in Hu Zhiming City, in recent years because of the lack of labor pfer to the Hanoi region, now Vietnam's labor cost is also gradually rising, workers' monthly salary of 1000 yuan RMB, and the Pearl River Delta region a few hundred yuan."

However, although Vietnam's labor costs are relatively cheaper, Vietnam's footwear industry is temporarily unable to catch up with China in terms of production technology, matching and proficiency of workers. The production of sports shoes is still the main product, and the order of women's shoes, such as processes and designs, is difficult to pfer to Southeast Asian countries.

In addition to Vietnam, the export of footwear in China and Vietnam has been subjected to anti-dumping, and the sharp rise in wages of workers in China and Southeast Asia has weakened the competitiveness of footwear manufacturers. Many shoemaking enterprises have moved their factories to Bangladesh.

According to reports, in only six months, a number of shoemaking enterprises have pferred factories from Bangladesh to Bangladesh, with a total investment of more than 200 million US dollars, accounting for 2/3 of the total investment volume of Bangladesh's export processing zones.

Recently, Korean shoemaking enterprises also have the tendency to shift to Bangladesh. DaeMyung Footwear Co., Ltd. recently signed an agreement with the Meng Export Processing Zone Authority, and decided to invest $7 million 619 thousand to build shoe factories in the export processing zone of mencie Puri.

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Transfer

Although there are so many cases of shoemaking enterprises relocation.

However, the strength of China's shoemaking enterprises is still very strong.

This is mainly because, after nearly 20 years of development, China's footwear industry has built up a perfect upstream and downstream industrial chain with the advantage of high quality investment environment and labor resources advantages, forming various industrial clusters of footwear production, establishing a complete market for footwear products and shoe materials, and R & D centers and information centers for footwear.

Although China's footwear industry is also facing the influence of domestic policy factors and rising labor costs, as well as from India, Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries in the middle and low grade footwear competition, Italy, Spain, Portugal and other countries in the high-end shoes competition, but China's footwear industry's comprehensive competitive advantage is still difficult to match in other countries.

Although India has a large population, vast land and almost the same price as China, it is still difficult to compete with China in terms of raw materials matching, industrial foundation and industrial workers.

Although Vietnam is the first choice for China's footwear industry, especially Taiwanese shoe factories, because Vietnam's labor cost is relatively cheaper, Vietnam's footwear industry is unable to catch up with China in terms of production technology, matching and proficiency of workers. It is still mainly about the production of sports shoes, and the relatively complex order of women's shoes such as processes and designs can hardly be pferred to Southeast Asian countries at the same time.

Moreover, with the increase of Vietnamese shoe factories, the cost of labor and land will surpass that of mainland China, while Vietnam's raw material supply, industrial foundation and domestic market potential are more difficult to compare with China.

As officials from the United Nations Industrial Division say, for a long time, it is difficult to find a better country for shoes development than China.

Long Yongguo, Secretary General of the Boao forum for Asia, also believes that at least for a long time, China's footwear industry will not be pferred to other countries.

Of course, in the current situation, some of them are not suitable for the shoe factories that do not continue to develop in the new environment.

In many kinds of matching, spare parts and so on, many countries are unable to compare with China. China has established a perfect industrial chain and division of labor cooperation system, so that the cost of products can be reduced to a minimum.

The supporting ability of industry is backward.

Zhang Huarong, President of Huajian Footwear Group, said that a shoe factory in Dongguan would be able to complete the preparation of shoe making equipment, raw materials and workers in less than a week. 100% of the raw materials of the medium and low end could be bought in Dongguan.

To build a shoe factory in India and Vietnam, we must prepare tens of millions of dollars in capital, and most of them will be invested in supporting industrial facilities.

In 2004, Huajian set up two production lines in Vietnam, with an average wage of only 3/5 in China, but the industry was inconvenient. The raw materials and accessories needed to be shipped from Dongguan.

Only then can we maintain production.

These are absolutely not problems in China. There are a large number of spare parts manufacturers and all kinds of supporting products.

At present, there are about 800 leather and footwear enterprises in Vietnam, with an annual output of 780 million pairs of shoes. The shoe enterprises mainly concentrate on Hu Zhiming, Pingyang, Haiphong and Hanoi. Quite a few of them are imported from China, and the production process is only medium.

Many Chinese shoemaking enterprises have adopted world-class equipment, production matching, craft and so on are obviously higher than Vietnam.

In the wake of the financial crisis, international purchasers pay more attention to cost, but at the same time, they also have higher requirements for technology, quality and delivery time.

Combined with many factors, China's shoe enterprises are generally more competitive than Vietnamese shoe companies. The international brands such as Italy Wanli Wade, which have been subcontracted by AOKANG group, have basically handed over their orders to Chinese factories.

Prospect

China's footwear industry has a long history. With the tide of reform and opening up, China has taken the pition from the international footwear industry to the world's largest footwear production center and sales center. It has formed a very perfect industrial chain and industrial development platform, and has basically occupied the middle and low end shoe products market. The traditional shoe making powers such as Italy, Spain and Portugal have abandoned the low and middle end market, and have all shifted to high-end market. Brazil's footwear industry in South America has begun to turn to high-end market.

This is a trend of international industrial development.

There are more than 30 thousand shoe making enterprises in China, with over 100 trillion pairs of shoes per year and about 4000000 employees, and export shoes account for about 70% of the global market share.

According to the analysis of relevant experts in the industry, the development of China's footwear industry will inevitably move from the low-end market to the high-end market, and from quantity to quality and efficiency. Upgrading and upgrading of the industry will be the way to go. Therefore, in terms of quantity, the production and export volume of China's footwear industry may decline in the future, but the quality will be improved, and the price of products and the total value of exports will continue to grow.

Second, the industry pformation and pfer of China's footwear industry is the general trend. Some enterprises with innovative ability and normative will move towards the pformation of industrial upgrading.

More importantly, more and more Chinese enterprises recognize the importance of brand.

Companies like Hengda, AOKANG, Kangnai and other enterprises have established a relatively sound brand system, and become well-known trademarks in China. More and more consumers are welcome. They will become the backbone of China's footwear industry.