The leather shoes and handbags manufacturing industry plays important roles in serving the needs of domestic consumption and export. In recent years, the leather shoes and handbags industry has grown in scale and production, including domestic enterprises of all economic sectors and the FDI enterprises, which has enabled Vietnam to be the 3rd ranked export country of footwear and handbags and created millions of jobs. Sustainable export growth
According to the General Statistics Office, in 2013, the total export turnover of leather, shoes and bags reached US$10.32 billion, accounting for 11 percent of the processing industry and 7.7 percent of the total exports of the country. Among the total exports, the footwear exports reached US$8.4 billion and the total exports of suitcase and briefcase have reached US$1.92 billion.
In the first 5 months of 2014, the footwear industry produced US$107.2 million pairs of shoes, up 26.3 percent in volume with total value of US$3.76 billion and increased by 17.8 percent in exports compared with the same period in 2013. The exports of bags reached US$1.04 billion, up 40.7 percent compared to the same period in 2013.
It is reported that the largest export markets of footwear and bags of Vietnam are the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Italy, China, Finland, and South Korea. In addition, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Middle East are the potential markets with rapid growth in recent years. Notably, the exports to some small markets and niche markets, such as Chile, Israel, Greece, Poland have made a leap in the recent years.
The impressive growth in exports of footwear and handbags of Vietnam in the first few months of 2014 has made important contributions to the import tariff cuts under the preferential tariff programme of the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) that the European Union (EU) has granted Vietnam since January 1st, 2014. In addition, the recovery of consumption from the major export markets, particularly the European markets, as well as growth factors promote the export of footwear industry of Vietnam. Until now, many companies in the industry have signed the export contracts until the end of 2014.
In the coming years, the growth of the exports of leather products, shoes, and handbags Vietnam is high; especially, after the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Free Trade Agreements (FTA) between Vietnam and EU are signed and in effect, this will help increase the competitiveness of footwear, sandals, and bags of Vietnam in the major export markets such as the EU, U.S., Japan and other members of the TPP.
Development strategy in the coming years
To capture the best opportunities from the market, in the coming years, the enterprises of the shoes and bags should keep rapid growth but need to be stable and sustainable in the direction of specialisation, reinforcing the upgrading of technology, modernising the production and developing the brands to improve both product quality and export scale, with high labor productivity and economic efficiency.
The shoes and handbags industry will be proactive in economic integration with other countries in the ASEAN region and the world to gradually shift from the pure processing to manufacturing their own products to meet the demands of both export and domestic markets, which helps create more jobs, increase income and improve the lives of workers.
To reduce the dependence on raw materials and auxiliary materials imported from abroad, especially from China, in the short-term, Vietnamese enterprises need to diversify sources of imported raw materials and more importantly, set up the long-term goal by forming the industrial clusters to produce the leather materials and improving the environment to reduce costs for the enterprises and the trade deficit for the country as well as enhance the added value of products.
With the advantage of technical infrastructure and low labour cost in the region, the enterprises in the industry could enhance their capacity to get involved in the supply chain of value added leather products on the world market and enhance their competitiveness if they proactively seek for new raw materials and improve the designing capacity. Therefore, the development of the production scale should be associated with the the expansion of export markets and the domestic market.
As for the footwear manufacturing, by 2020, Vietnam strives to build the industry with key exports and the increase of the localisation ratio of products of 60-65 percent by 2015, 75-80 percent by 2020 and 80-85 percent by 2025. This helps reach the target of footwear exports by 2015 is US$9.1 billion, US$14.5 billion by 2020 and US$21 billion by 2025 and totally meet the domestic consumption needs.
Besides, Vietnam should positively develop the human resources through professional training to enhance the organisational production and management capacity and pay particular attention to the poor workers and farmers to help them to shift the economic restructuring of agricultural production to industrial production. The country also needs to associate the development of production with the social responsibility and user-friendly and environmental protection.
Other activities should be focused, such as the shifting of the production facilities to rural areas and areas with rich labor, building and development of the new training facilities and the scientific and technology research facilities, control center, and establishment of the trade promotion center and fashion hub of footwear and handbags at home and abroad.
Xuan Duong
Đăng ký: VietNam News
