Local footwear manufacturers should improve the design and quality oftheir products to attract local customers after bringing the localfootwear market under free trade agreements, said experts.

According to the Vietnam Leather Footwear and Bag Association (Lefaso),local demand for footwear reaches 150 million pairs per year and localproducers have met only 40 percent of the demand, reported Dien danDoanh nghiep newspaper.

Local footwear mainly caters to rural andremote areas that have people with low incomes. Therefore, largefootwear manufacturers often make footwear products for exports and haveleft the domestic market to small and medium enterprises, theassociation noted.

Meanwhile, the domestic leather and footwearindustry does not have any standard for the use of chemical residues inproducts. It does not have quality verification centres to ensure thequality of raw materials or finished products.

Nguyen Van Khanh,general secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Leather Footwear Association,said Vietnamese footwear producers should pay more attention to thedesign of their products to attract more local customers.

They should build a trade mark and distribution system as well as take flexible marketing measures, Khanh said.

TranVan Tac, General Director of the Tuan Viet Co. Ltd. and the owner ofTuvi's footwear brand, said some of the major factors for developing thedomestic footwear market were quality, design, and price.

TheLefaso, along with the Vietnam Leather Footwear Institute and otherrelated agencies, will build a system to ensure product qualitystandards for protecting the domestic footwear industry and market andto help them compete with imported footwear.

The Ministry ofIndustry and Trade has also submitted to the government a decree to helpthe support industry in various sectors, including leather andfootwear. Support industries are expected to ensure the sustainabledevelopment of sectors in the domestic market.-VNA