The leather and footwear industry will focus on diversifying product designs and improving quality of human resources as part of a new development plan.
The plan, ratified by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, aimed to shift the leather and footwear sector to a spearhead export industry, dominating the world market and generating more jobs.
It also defined that footwear remained the sector's key product with an estimated output of 1.6 billion pairs. In addition, the sector would pay attention to producing fashion leather shoes, briefcases and wallets in order to exploit new markets.
Priority would be given to building new industrial complexes to provide input materials for the industry in an attempt to raise the percentage of domestic input materials to 60-65 per cent in 2015, 75-80 per cent in 2020 and 80-85 per cent in 2025.
Under the plan, the sector targeted to earn US$9.1 billion from exports in 2015, $14.5 billion in 2020, and $21 billion in 2025.
To realize the plan, the sector required more than VND59.5 trillion ($2.9 billion) in investment, of which 43 per cent would come from domestic funds.
This year marked strong growth of the domestic leather footwear sector. Over the past 11 months, it posted an export turnover of over $4.5 billion, up 10 per cent year-on-year.
The Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association has forecast the sector could generate $5 billion from exports by the year-end, $300 million higher than the target set earlier.
Despite positive export performance, the association said the sector still encountered weaknesses that hindered its sustainable growth, including dependence on imported materials and inadequate workforce which resulted in lower competitiveness and trade barriers from importing countries. It suggested the domestic footwear companies seek ways to penetrate smaller markets such as Turkey, Australia, South America, Africa and Canada besides traditional export markets like the EU, Japan and the US.
Developing the domestic market was described as an important solution. If the firms dominated the domestic market, paid more attention to building trademarks and produced high-grade products, they could do less outwork for foreign companies, build their reputation on the international market and increase exports to make higher revenue. CITATION http://www.chinaleather.org/eng/show.php?itemid=5641
The plan, ratified by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, aimed to shift the leather and footwear sector to a spearhead export industry, dominating the world market and generating more jobs.
It also defined that footwear remained the sector's key product with an estimated output of 1.6 billion pairs. In addition, the sector would pay attention to producing fashion leather shoes, briefcases and wallets in order to exploit new markets.
Priority would be given to building new industrial complexes to provide input materials for the industry in an attempt to raise the percentage of domestic input materials to 60-65 per cent in 2015, 75-80 per cent in 2020 and 80-85 per cent in 2025.
Under the plan, the sector targeted to earn US$9.1 billion from exports in 2015, $14.5 billion in 2020, and $21 billion in 2025.
To realize the plan, the sector required more than VND59.5 trillion ($2.9 billion) in investment, of which 43 per cent would come from domestic funds.
This year marked strong growth of the domestic leather footwear sector. Over the past 11 months, it posted an export turnover of over $4.5 billion, up 10 per cent year-on-year.
The Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association has forecast the sector could generate $5 billion from exports by the year-end, $300 million higher than the target set earlier.
Despite positive export performance, the association said the sector still encountered weaknesses that hindered its sustainable growth, including dependence on imported materials and inadequate workforce which resulted in lower competitiveness and trade barriers from importing countries. It suggested the domestic footwear companies seek ways to penetrate smaller markets such as Turkey, Australia, South America, Africa and Canada besides traditional export markets like the EU, Japan and the US.
Developing the domestic market was described as an important solution. If the firms dominated the domestic market, paid more attention to building trademarks and produced high-grade products, they could do less outwork for foreign companies, build their reputation on the international market and increase exports to make higher revenue. CITATION http://www.chinaleather.org/eng/show.php?itemid=5641
