Vietnam Becomes World's Fourth Biggest Footwear Exporter

Vietnam Becomes World's Fourth Biggest Footwear Exporter

Vietnam has become the world's fourth largest footwear exporter, following China, Hong Kong and Italy, with total export revenues reaching US$2.6 billion in 2004, up 15 per cent against 2003.

Vietnam has competitive advantages in such footwear products as gym shoes and female leather shoes due to big consumption markets.

The EU will remain the biggest market for Vietnamese footwear products as over the next years as the Vietnamese products are subject to the EU's preferential tariff and no export quota.

The US will be a potential market for Vietnamese gym shoes, male and female leather shoes, and slippers, besides Japan, Southeast Asian nations, Russia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

According to the Industry Ministry, footwear export growth is still low due to the country's heavy reliance on imported materials. Over the next years, especially in 2005, the sector needs to have measures to raise the content of domestic materials.

While local private and foreign invested footwear makers operate efficiently and have great contribution to the industry's export revenues, State-run footwear enterprises fare operating poorly and turn out products of low competitiveness.

Vietnam has about 380 leather and footwear enterprises, which are capable of annually producing around 480 million pairs of shoes and slippers and 37 million other leather products, such as handbags. Among the enterprises, 148 are foreign-invested ones, mainly owned by Chinese, Taiwanese and South Korean investors.

The country hopes to earn US$6.2 billion from footwear exports in 2010.
(Econet)