Vietnam Eyes US$3.3Bln from Footwear Exports This Year

Vietnam Eyes US$3.3Bln from Footwear Exports This Year

The footwear industry in Vietnam will strive to gain US$3.3 billion of export turnover in 2005, increasing 18 per cent-20 per cent against 2004.

To achieve this target, the sector should focus on producing potential and high competitive products such as canvas shoes, gym shoes, high quality leather shoes and various kinds of fashionable bags, said Nguyen Gia Thao, president of the Vietnam Shoe and Leather Association.

Although Vietnam's footwear export criteria increased in 2004, the sector’s business and production activities had many fluctuations, Thao admitted. Canvas shoemakers, mainly State-run enterprises like Hiep Hung, Thang Long and Vinh Yen shoe companies continued facing difficulties due to market demand for diversified and complicated models. Therefore, the market for this product has been more and more narrowed, except high quality canvas shoes, he said.

However, the footwear official still believed that 2004 is the impetus of the country’s footwear export development in the coming years.

Moreover, the expansion of European Union (EU) will create favorable conditions for footwear export development because the EU market currently accounts for 73-75 per cent of the sector’s export turnover.

Additionally, the country’s footwear enterprises will continue to enjoy preferential tariff when exporting to EU, helping increase export turnover because Vietnamese footwear products meet customers’ demand in EU countries.

Local enterprises, which have big workshops and foreign invested capital, will also have more priorities to export high quality and fashionable model products to the US market, which currently occupies 14-15 per cent of Vietnam footwear sector’s export turnover.

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 last year, up 15 per cent against 2003. The sector also exceeded nearly US$100 million of its targeted plan last year.

The country has around 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.

• (Investment)