ANCI expects shoe sector to weather storm
President of ANCI, Vito Artioli, believes there is still hope for the footwear industry, but that it will take time for it to make a full recovery. "The recent industry repositioning has helped, but now we have to avert a deep and prolonged crisis," he said.
ANCI acknowledges that, for a sector that exports 80% of its production, the decline in international consumption has had significant repercussions. But it says despite a difficult 2008, and the even more complex conditions in 2009, the sector is not facing collapse.
Mr Artioli said that, in general, companies are looking toward the medium term, making brave decisions to hone their production assortment and are forging alliances with other companies.
He commented: “Among the sectors downstream, footwear has suffered losses of about 7.4% but it has still reported better results than the other sectors. The leather shoe sector—our production specialisation and the pride and joy of Italian production—has managed to keep losses down to just 5.1%. Clearly, smaller losses are nothing to celebrate, but we have to be aware that the repositioning and restructuring undertaken in the sector in recent years have made us less vulnerable. This does not take away from the fact that we are still weathering this storm and we need time to emerge from it."
