Exports of leather and footwear industry to increase in 2019

	Potential risks for exports to U.S.
	Positive signs of the economy in the first half of 2019
	Garment-textile, fruit-vegetable exports surge

The leather and footwear industry will achieve export turnover of 21.5 billion USD in 2019. Photo: Nguyen Hue

According to Lefaso, in the first six months of 2019, export turnover of the footwear industry reached over 10.33 billion USD. In particular, footwear reached 8.53 billion USD and bags reached 1.8 billion USD. The largest footwear export market in the first six months wasthe US, followed by the EU, China, Japan and South Korea.

In 2019, consumer demand in Vietnam's main exporting countries remains high. China continues to reduce investment in textile and footwear sectors to focus on high-tech industries, so orders for processing shoes and bags will continue to shift from China to Vietnam, which takes advantage of tariff preferences from the CPTPP and EVFTA.

The increasing US-China trade war has begun to affect Vietnam's import and export and promote foreign investment in the leather and footwear sector to increase in Vietnam in 2018-2019, which avoids the impact of the trade war and the anticipation of FTAs ​​in force in 2019. Vietnam's leather and footwear exports in 2019 continued to increase thanks to the increase in exports of FDI.

Based on the above analysis, Lefaso predicts the shoe production index in 2019 will increase by 10-11%; total export turnover of footwear will reach 21.5 billion USD, up 10% compared to 2018; leather and footwear exports will make up about 9% of the country's total export turnover; the localization rate of footwear products will reach 60%; footwear exports will rank fourth and bagsrank 10th in Vietnam's leading export products.

In 2018, the total export turnover of the leather and footwear industry reached 19.63 billion USD, up 9.3% compared to the same period in 2017. Vietnam's footwear products were exported to hundreds of countries,of which 50 countries have export turnover of over 1 million USD. At present, the leather and footwear industry are creating jobs for 1.5 million workers, holding secondposition in the world export and it is one of the sectors that make an important contribution to the country's economic development.

In the period of 2012-2018, despite many difficulties, the leather and footwear industry maintained a high export growth rate. Having the above results, according to the assessment of Lefaso and the representative of the Vietnam Chamber of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Executive Committee of the VI term has made a very important contribution in promoting policy consultations and trade promotion support help enterprises to takeopportunities that Vietnam's integration process brings.

With the Executive Board of the 7th term tenure, which has been elected, there are 37 members who are members working in the fields of production and business of footwear, bags and research units, institutes related with 1 Chairman and 4 vice presidents, in the period of 2019-2024, Lefaso will focus on strengthening activities for the leather and footwear industry to grow strongly both in the domestic market and in the international market.

Accordingly, the association will continue to participate in government advisory activities in issuing policies related to production and business activities of enterprises; coordinate with state management agencies to develop strategies to meet the changes of the economy of Vietnam and the world; promote policy dissemination activities, provide specialized information to support businesses, attract domestic and foreign investment to develop supporting industries to produce footwear materials increasing domestic ratio chemical products and maintain sustainable development; improve the effectiveness of trade promotion activities such as training seminars to improve production management capacity of enterprises and attend foreign fairs according to the national trade promotion program with high quality; improve efficiency of solutions to strongly support small and medium enterprises; improve the efficiency of the sector's human resource development solutions to meet development requirements in the coming period; pay attention and build solutions to develop the local market.

At the conference, representatives of businesses, leaders of the association, representatives of institutes and schools also discussed many issues related to the development of the footwear industry such as improving labor productivity, using Industry4.0, high competitiveness, production protection, sustainable development, enterprise management, training and supporting industry development.