The 18Th Dongguan International Footwear Technology Conference Was Held In November This Year

By Dongguan City Leatherwear shoes The 18th International Footwear Technology Conference hosted by the Association will be held in China for the first time on November 13 this year. At that time, more than 300 well-known managers and technicians from the footwear industry at home and abroad will make a special trip to Dongguan to visit and investigate the local shoemaking enterprises.

At the beginning of this year, the author learned from the China Leather Association that Dongguan shoemaking enterprises are planning to move northward collectively. In September this year, Dongguan shoemaking enterprises organized a delegation to participate in the China International Leather Exhibition held in Shanghai, expanding the radiation of Dongguan's industrial clusters. This move was also interpreted by the outside world as a breakthrough for the "Shoe City" to get out of the industrial downturn.

The China International Leather Show, held in Pudong, Shanghai on September 4 this year, was jointly organized by the China Leather Association and the Asia Pacific Leather Show Co., Ltd. It is the largest leather, footwear, luggage and other professional exhibition in Asia. After 15 years of development, this exhibition has become a barometer of China's leather and footwear industries. Every year, many shoe manufacturers at home and abroad will be attracted to participate in the exhibition, and some large international shoe enterprises will also use this platform to choose Chinese partners.

According to Nie Yumei, the executive deputy secretary-general of China Leather Association, as a major shoemaking province in China, Guangdong's shoe industry has been consolidating its dominant position in the manufacturing sector in recent years. In particular, Dongguan's export-oriented shoe enterprises have developed rapidly. After completing the original accumulation of the industry, the city's shoe enterprises and shoe material upstream enterprises have a strong desire to actively expand the international market. Although the international trade environment has shrunk seriously in recent years, the export of the shoemaking industry that meets the immediate needs of overseas consumers for "wear" is still eye-catching. At present, many Dongguan shoe enterprises and shoe material enterprises have participated in the exhibition in the form of "industrial clusters", hoping to further expand overseas business opportunities.

"In recent years, shoe enterprises have been frustrated at both ends. The decrease of foreign trade orders and the fierce competition in the domestic market have led to great inventory pressure. In addition, the RMB exchange rate, raw material prices and labor costs continue to rise, so the business of shoe enterprises is not easy to do." Wang Zhuoliang, Deputy Secretary General of Dongguan Leather Shoes Association, said in an interview with reporters yesterday, There are enterprises around him that have closed their doors and changed careers due to poor market conditions, but bankruptcy is only an individual phenomenon and has not become a trend. After all, shoes have the characteristics of meeting people's daily wear needs, and enterprises have strong confidence to persist in doing so. Especially since the end of last year, the export situation of Dongguan shoes has improved significantly.

According to statistics, in the first quarter of this year, Dongguan's foreign trade import and export reached 32.78 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 6.8%, of which the export reached 19.34 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 9.1%, an increase of about two percentage points over the same period last year. Among the export categories of industrial products, the export situation of Dongguan footwear products is also commendable.

Wang Zhuoliang introduced that in the face of the increasingly complex international trade situation, Dongguan shoe enterprises have also seen some positive changes. Many of them have taken the initiative to pay attention to the trend of the international market. On the basis of consolidating old customers in Europe and the United States, they have adjusted their export strategies in a timely manner and increased customer expansion in emerging markets such as Japan, Southeast Asia and Africa. In October last year, Dongguan Leather Shoes Association also organized more than 20 shoe enterprises to set up a domestic sales platform in Houjie Town in the form of "factory stores" to help enterprises expand the domestic sales market by relying on their own brands.