Stepping up investment in leather and footwear industry

New opportunity for HCMC’s leather & footwear

The Italy Business Association has recently decided to choose eight footwear companies in District 4, Ho Chi Minh City to carry out the project “SMEs cluster development to enhance the competitiveness of Vietnamese leather and footwear industry” with a total budget of some € 3 million. This is good news for the leather and footwear industry of Ho Chi Minh City. According to specialists, designing is the weakness that the Vietnamese leather and footwear industry has to overcome to sustain growth.

New opportunity for HCMC’s leather & footwear

Mr Tran Thanh Phong, owner of Long Viet Shoe Company, one of eight chosen companies located in District 4, pointed out weaknesses of shoemakers in the district: Only manufacturing old-styled shoes. Their new designs are mainly copycatted from popular models on the market. They are primarily offshore contractors for famous foreign brand names. The participation in this project will help them learn advanced technologies from Italy and beautiful designs to produce a wide range of products.

Eight selected facilities ensure the following factors: Finance, workforce, manufacturing process and product consumption. At first, they are organised to form the small and medium business complex of District 4. This combination is compulsorily committed to implementing 12 key points, including the formation of equity sharing corporate alliance; cooperation to overcome competition; specific action plans; ties with banks; complex advertisement, etc. In addition, these selected units are jointly trained of footwear designing, production, marketing, market seeking, branding skills, etc by Italian footwear specialists and the Ho Chi Minh City Leather and Footwear Association to boost up production and improve the quality of the city’s leather and footwear industry.

One of very active members for activities of this project, Mr Vu Cham, President of Giay Viet Company and Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Leather and Footwear Association, said the Vietnamese leather and footwear industry has a lot advantages. If it has sufficient conditions, it will be second to none in the world. The Italian side is, meanwhile, very enthusiastic to help with high technologies because they may need to buy our products in the future.

Mr Nguyen Van Khanh, General Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Leather and Footwear Association, said: “”The most important objective is to generate benefits to three parties: Italian companies, Vietnamese companies, and European consumers. The Italian companies have capital and modern technology while the Vietnamese ones have skills and manpower. We should combine what we have with what we don’t have to create a high value added product. Italian companies purchase Vietnamese footwear to sell in Italy and Europe; they will enjoy benefits from Vietnamese shoes of high quality and very reasonable prices.”

A total grant of € 3 million in three years will help shoemakers in Ho Chi Minh City to change the mode of production and product consumption to make Vietnamese branded products competitive on the world market. Another important aspect is to help HCM City-based shoemakers to end offshore outsourcing, create jobs and increase incomes for their workers from the century-old industry of the city.

Resolving designing weaknesses

According to Italian experts, because [Vietnamese] companies have only outsourced for foreigner partners for so many years, thus although they have divisions specialised in product designing and development, even have sample production lines, their designers only focus on techniques but have limited design ideas. Aesthetics and techniques of smallholding shoemakers are very weak. Many pairs of shoes are only shiny, not fashionable, and cause pains when we wear them. Meanwhile, professional designers limit fashion to only clothes rather than shoes. Hence, they have poor knowledge of technique.

According to designers, their first and foremost difficulty remains hard-to-find materials, ranging from mould and sole to leather, cloth and accessories. When ideas are drawn up, it however takes quite a long time to have materials and other conditions.

Ms Nguyen Thi Tong, Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association (Lefaso), admitted that a designer can hardly realise his idea without enough materials. The trading of raw materials remains very weak. If domestic companies have good material trading activities, designers will find their works easier.

Mr Federico Bechini, President of Consorzio Toscana Shoe Components Production Association, Italy, said that Vietnam should consider building industrial complexes or buildings exclusively designed for footwear material production because manufacturers of buttons, ornaments and moulds do not need large grounds.

Source vccinews

Tags: Vietnam Footwear Industry