A new president and new guidelines for the Brazilian shoe manufacturers’ association

Brazil is acquiring increasing authority and recognition on the international fashion scene, establishing as a big player on the world market. Footwear is the most tangible evidence of this new standing in the trade, also thanks to the efforts of Abicalçados – the Brazilian Shoe Manufacturers’ Association.

The third biggest producer in the world, after China and India, Brazil’s footwear industry has a structure very similar to that of Italy. Brazilian production is, in fact, concentrated in areas of five states that represent the manufacturing districts, with an overall number of 8,000 firms employing more than 340,000 workers, in addition to 3,460 allied producers with 289,195 employees (including tanners, footwear machinery engineers, manufacturers of components and other leather products).

In the first quarter of 2013 the Brazilian footwear industry exported a total of 33,456,000 pairs of shoes for an overall value of more than 281 million dollars.

The scenario has changed considerably over the last decades – explains Heitor Klein, the new executive president of Abicalçados – From being a country that only provided low cost labour for others, Brazil now follows a strategy which differs from its prime competitors: today rather than focusing on price and standard production it offers products of higher added value with the accent on quality and style. In fact, revaluation of the Real compared to other currencies has meant expressly rethinking the competitive context in which Brazilian firms operated. No longer low production costs facilitated by low value currency but competition regarding design, quality of products and brands

Like Europe, Brazil now has to face the challenges of the global market: first of all, the battle against import of Chinese goods that are sold at dumping prices, protecting the domestic industry by means of commercial defense on one hand and, on the other, training increasingly skilled workers.

One step in the fight against mass imports of Chinese footwear was taken in 2009, when Brazil managed to impose anti-dumping measures thanks to the initiative of the Ministry for Development, Industry and Foreign Trade and to Abicalçados, still working to extend these measures in the context of complete protection of the originality of Brazilian products.

This is one of the tasks I have set myself as the new president of Abicalçados and aim to carry out tenaciously – concluded Heitor Klein – As an association we feel that development of the national industry is on one hand based on respecting the rules and on the other helping firms to compete on fresh markets in this challenging new scenario