Shoe orders abound as Nicaragua becomes supplier for whole region
27/11/2015
In recent comments to local media, association president, Alejandro Delgado, said important buyers from other countries in the region visited Nicaragua in late November to place orders totalling more than 400,000 pairs.
He explained that the idea of giving children from low-income families good-quality, government-supplied shoes as a way of encouraging them to attend lessons was spreading in Central America. One of the first countries to make this move, boosting the domestic footwear and leather industries as well as literacy and numeracy rates among children, was Argentina in 2009, with Peru and El Salvador among the countries that followed suit. Nicaragua was quick to emulate the idea and, more than most, has continued its school shoes programme.
Mr Delgado said the large volume of orders Nicaraguan footwear manufacturers received in November were from the governments of two neighbouring countries who want to put a similar programme in place for children there, but who lack the domestic production capacity to be able to put it into effect without outside help.
He said his organisation had set up meetings with around 150 small and medium-sized producers in Nicaragua to discuss how best to meet growing demand, pointing out that domestic producers were already committed to supplying their own government with around 600,000 pairs of school shoes next year. He pointed out that the buyers from neighbouring countries were asking for quick turnaround times and that his member companies had to be careful not to promise too much. “We will only take on what we know we can deliver,” he said, “but we are optimistic and we think this is good news. Nicaragua is becoming the supplier of good-quality school shoes for the whole region and our entire leather and footwear sector is benefitting.”
In total, he said Nicaragua’s footwear industry produced around 6.5 million pairs in 2014 and that the figure for 2015 is likely to be 8 million.
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