Urgent Task For China'S Footwear Industry To Adjust Its Industrial Structure

Recently, news on the output of Chinese footwear products has reached 10 billion pairs, and has attracted much attention from all walks of life to China's footwear industry.

Wei Yafei, director of the footwear association of China Leather Association, said in an interview with reporters recently: "we should treat this figure calmly.

Excessive production is pressure on the Chinese market and even the world market. The sustainable development of China's footwear industry should pay more attention to the competitive advantages of domestic and foreign markets.

Overproduction has made the footwear industry accelerate the adjustment of industrial structure and explore a new mode of development of the industry, which is more pressing. This is also the key to further develop the brand in the next few years.

The advantages and disadvantages of the industry and the "calm" emphasized by Wei Ya Africa have its own reasons.

Over the past 20 years since reform and opening up, China's footwear industry has seized the development opportunities of the world shoe manufacturing center to pfer to China, making full use of its advantages in production costs, labor resources and raw material supply, and constantly improving the industrial chain and supporting facilities, and constantly improving its processing and production capacity.

At present, China's footwear industry has completed large-scale equipment introduction and technological pformation, forming a complete industrial chain. At the same time, it has the processing capacity and the international mid-level processing level of any country in the world. It has relatively low labor cost and relatively high labor skills, and the domestic market, which accounts for 1 billion 300 million of the world's 1/5, will become the first big consumer of footwear products.

In addition, from the perspective of industrial layout, the whole industry has built the featured areas of production concentration: Men's shoes in Zhejiang and Jiangsu, women's shoes in Guangdong and Huizhou, Chengdu's shoes, Fujian's tourist shoes, etc. 27 Chinese famous brand products have been produced in leather shoes and tourist shoes; in the industry, 6 Chinese leading shoe kings, 8 genuine leather shoes kings and 25 genuine leather shoes have been born with quality, scale and brand recognition; 10 billion pairs of production capacity have been formed, accounting for 50% of the total output of world footwear products, and become the world's largest footwear producing country, exporter and consumer country.

According to Wei Ya Fei, at present, nearly 8 billion pairs of shoes produced in China are used for export and the rest are consumed in the domestic market.

In the third quarter of 2007, China exported a total of 6 billion 440 million pairs of shoes and 18 billion 360 million US dollars in foreign exchange, with an average price of 2.85 US dollars, an increase of 10.4% and 15.9% respectively over the same period in 2006.

It is noteworthy that, under the influence of EU anti-dumping, from January 2007 to September, the number of leather shoes exports in China increased negatively for 9 consecutive months, and the proportion of leather shoes exports decreased by 2.4 percentage points compared with that in 2006, and the export amount decreased by 1.8 percentage points, which will directly affect the competitiveness of China's footwear products in the international market.

Affected by the upgrading of domestic consumption, the number of imported shoes increased by more than 50% during the same period.

Among them, the number of leather shoes imports increased by 44.6% in September 2007.

With the deepening of reform and opening to the outside world, the export of China's footwear products has highlighted structural contradictions, such as large export products but low prices, many export enterprises but small size, more processing but less own brands.

In addition, similar to other traditional processing products, China's footwear industry is still at the end of the industrial chain. Our country lacks the control capability in the middle market of footwear distribution in the international market, and the establishment of the retail links network is still in its initial stage.

The low added value of export products and the low output value of unit energy consumption compel China's shoe making industry to adjust its structure and change its original mode of trade growth so as to make the industry bigger and stronger.

Relying on quality competition, the market has not yet become a climate. Wei Ya Fei stresses that at present, China's footwear industry has established a large image in the domestic and foreign markets. However, to achieve leaping over to the strong ranks, we should examine the distance between China's footwear industry and the advanced international level.

Wei Ya Fei said that this is related to the manufacturing stage of China's footwear industry.

According to introduction, this gap is mainly reflected in 4 aspects: first, consciousness.

That is, how do manufacturers view their products?

What products should be brought to consumers?

At present, quite a lot of shoemaking enterprises in China are completing the assembly of shoes mechanically. Production is to satisfy the assembly process of products, and the market has yet to realize the requirements of footwear for comfort, health and environmental protection.

The two is the duplication of design concepts and the lack of new ideas in the introduction of personalized products.

This is related to the lack of a well-educated and cultural design team in the domestic footwear industry.

At present, the design and development of most shoemaking enterprises in China still stay at the stage of master apprentices, while designers from colleges and universities pay more attention to shoemaking technology and management, which is very different from foreign professional designers. They often start from the motion structure of the human body, and constantly innovate in the design of sole and side, and the use of materials, making them more comfortable and healthier.

The three is the difference in efficiency.

This includes raw material storage, logistics distribution, commodity management, online production and so on. It is still in the stage of mechanical management. Enterprises blindly pursue the length of the production line, so that part of the production efficiency is lost on the production line, and the work efficiency needs to be changed.

Four, information technology is relatively backward. A lot of digital computing, material accounting, cargo flow, capital exchanges and so on are mostly done by manpower, resulting in the backwardness of the flow of people, logistics and capital flows.

At present, the logistics of footwear products in the international market has entered the stage of packaging directly from the enterprise warehouse directly into the international market stores, and has a very clear record of the consumption information of each product.

On the contrary, many domestic enterprises are grafting modern information technology into traditional industries, but the effect is not good. The logistics process is not only a lot of links, but also a serious waste of resources. Moreover, they do not know the ultimate flow of products, which makes enterprises unable to grasp market sales information in a timely manner.

Based on the above two major situations, coupled with the increasing international trade disputes, anti-dumping and the rising demand for high-end products in the domestic market in recent years, the 10 billion pairs of production capacity should give the Chinese footwear industry more pressure to survive and develop.

To reduce pressure, there is only one way to go. That is to take the road of brand development, work hard on the adjustment of industry and product mix, innovate continuously in the development mode, and then call the famous brand of China's footwear products in the international market, and create a new image of China's footwear industry.

At present, some domestic shoe manufacturers that have won the title of Chinese famous brand products have taken a good start in this respect.

Second, the leather shoes products were sold in the form of stores in developed countries, and the highest price of export products reached US $60 to 70 US dollars. In May 2007, BELLE and Anta, the leading manufacturers of leather shoes and tourist shoes in China, have achieved a new listing in Hongkong, which has provided a new channel for the financing of traditional industries, and provided more support for R & D investment, channel construction and brand promotion. In November 2007, BELLE invested 1 billion 600 million yuan to acquire the famous shoemaking footwear industry and series brands in the industry, and completed the largest acquisition of footwear industry. This also conveys the signal that China's footwear industry will enhance its hematopoietic function through cooperation, mergers and acquisitions, and continuously develop high value-added products. For example, Kangnai is developing high-end products through cooperation with the international footwear industry standards organization.

At the same time, the China Leather Association is also making positive efforts in guiding the industry to increase its structural readjustment efforts.

Among them, the leather industry "11th Five-Year" development plan (2006 to 2010), which has been promulgated and is being implemented, has clearly put forward that during the 11th Five-Year period, the leather industry should vigorously advocate "independent brands" and strive to create 3~5 world famous brands in 2010 or longer time, laying a solid foundation for a big leather producing country to enter into a leather power country.

To achieve this goal, there are two key points for development: first, brand building and the ability to ensure sustainable competition; two, adjust the structure, change the mode of growth, and make the industry stronger and bigger.

In September 2007, the Council again stressed to the whole industry that implementing brand strategy, promoting industrial restructuring and promoting brand products to the world are the top priorities of China's leather industry in 2008.