Abicalçados says Brazil’s footwear figures for 2017 “could have been worse”

19/04/2018
Brazilian footwear industry body Abicalçados has put the country’s shoe consumption in 2017 at 805.5 million pairs. Shoe manufacturers in Brazil produced 908.9 million pairs last year. These figures show increments year on year of 1% and 1.2% respectively.

Abicalçados executive-president, Heitor Klein, said Brazil’s growth figures were disappointing because the most recent global figures show and increase in production of 4%, reaching 21.4 billion, and an increase in consumption of 3%, reaching 19.6 billion, in 2017, compared to the previous year.

Mr Klein said a good performance by Brazilian shoe brands in export markets prevented the 2017 result from being “even worse”. They exported 127.1 million pairs and brought in revenues of almost $1.1 billion, increases in volume of 1.2% and in value of 9.3%.

He also lamented a decline in levels of employment in the Brazilian shoe industry in 2017. At the end of last year, the industry had 279,000 employees, 2.2% down on the figure for 2016.