HCM City (VNS/VNA) –Vietnam nowexports 1 billion pairs of shoes per year and the nation is the second largestleather and footwear exporter in the world, according to experts at the VietnamFootwear Summit 2019 held in HCM City on March 20.

Diep Thanh Kiet, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association(Lefaso), said Vietnam follows just China in leather and footwear exports withmore than 1 billion pairs of shoes each year.

From now until 2025, the country’s footwear industry is still competing well interms of labour costs, per capita income, economic policies and export markets,he said.

China has continued its policy on reducing investment incentives in thetextiles, garment and footwear sectors to focus on high-tech industries socontracts for processing footwear and bags would continue moving from China toVietnam, taking advantage of opportunities from the Comprehensive andProgressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Kiet said.

According to experts at the forum, the global demand for leather and footwearin recent years has reached about 23 billion pairs. Shoes are mainly producedin 10 countries, including China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The experts said Vietnam’s leather and footwear industry needs to expand itsexport markets. The industry must use new technologies andenvironmentally-friendly materials to increase market shares in fastidiousmarkets.

In addition, many global shoe brands have moved their production from China toother countries, mainly Indonesia, due to many reasons, including the US-Chinatrade war, according to the experts.

Therefore, Vietnamese enterprises need to understand the Government’s supportpolicy and other advantages such as 55 percent of the population in workingage, to find opportunities on expanding production of export products.

Vietnam has signed many free trade agreements (FTAs) or bilateral and multilateraleconomic agreements with many CPTPP member countries such as Japan, Malaysia,Singapore and Brunei.

Meanwhile, the localisation rate in the industry has increased rapidly,reaching 50 percent. With this rate, rules of origin under commitments of theagreements are not a big obstacle to domestic footwear enterprises in enjoyingpreferential tariffs, according to Lefaso.

The local footwear industry’s export revenue to CPTPP member markets isexpected to increase by 10-15 percent in 2019 because of high reduction intariffs and other regulations in the CPTPP that became effective in Vietnam earlierthis year, Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, Vice Chairwoman and General Secretary ofLefaso, said on the sidelines of the forum.

The CPTPP will also help Vietnam attract more foreign direct investment (FDI)to the footwear sector to build a region of producing auxiliary materials in thecountry and to support domestic enterprises in gradually joining the globalsupply chain.

According to Lefaso, the leather and footwear industry will increase thelocalisation rate to 60 percent from 50 percent at present. Meanwhile, leatherand footwear exports will rank fourth and export bags will stand 10th among the10 key export categories of the economy.

The total export value of the leather and footwear industry in 2018 reachednearly 20 billion USD, up 8.3 percent year on year.

The industry has targeted to gain a growth rate of 10 percent in the totalexport value this year to 21.5-22 billion USD, according to the association.-VNS/VNA