According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in the first 6 months of 2014, export leather products were estimated at US $ 4.8 billion, up nearly 22% over the same period last year. It is forecasted that the number of orders from exports will increase from now until the end of the year and the export turnover of the footwear for the whole year will exceed the $ 11 billion mark.

Currently, the export of footwear to traditional markets such as the United States, Japan, Belgium, Germany ... is very positive. Export turnover to some other markets such as Chile, Greece, Poland ... also increased sharply.

Contributing to the growth of export turnover of the industry in the first months of the year is due to the advantage from the Program of Promotion of the Universal Tariff (GSP) that the European Union (EU) for Vietnam from January /2014. In addition, with the stable advantage of politics, labor, quality of goods, Vietnam is attracting many orders from other markets.

Although the footwear industry has a good trade surplus, the localization rate of strategic materials is still low. The localized dharma of leather is only 30%, the synthetic leather is 40%, the decorative accessories are only approximately 45%... especially most of this imported raw material still comes from China, is creating a potential risk for the industry.

Therefore, the Vietnam Handbag Leather Association aims to raise the localization rate of strategic materials such as leather, synthetic leather, shoe soles exceeding the rate of 50% by 2020 and 70% from 2025, through promoting supporting industry development programs; Building leather industrial parks and small industrial clusters in key areas of synthetic leather production, shoe sole and decorative accessories ... to be proactive in raw materials, contributing to increasing the value of the product export.

Source "Vietnam Trade Information"