Chile cheers up Abicalçados

18/08/2016
Brazilian footwear association Abicalçados has said the country’s footwear manufacturers are being affected by currency exchange rates. The organisation’s executive president, Heitor Klein, has said his member companies agreed orders earlier in the year at prices that reflected a value of 3.5 reais to the US dollar, but that the exchange rates now are 3.10 reais to the dollar.

Attempts now to increase prices to recover some of the value are making Brazilian shoes less popular among buyers in other countries, he said.

In the first seven months of 2016, Brazilian footwear companies have exported 66.5 million pairs, earning revenues from these shipments of $530.1 million. These figures represent a 1.5% increase in volume of shoe shipments overseas but a 2.6% decline in value.

One interesting bright spot is that Brazil exported 535,000 pairs to Chile in July, more than in the whole of the rest of the year so far and 223.7% up on the same month in 2015.