CLIA, leather footwear and the CPC’s 14th five-year plan
Following on from China Leather Industry Association (CLIA)’s November visit to the cities of Jiaxing and Pinghu in Zhejiang province to discuss the impacts of the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s 14th five-year plan period (2021-25), CLIA secretary general, Chen Zhanguang (pictured), led a high-level industry team to Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou (all Guangdong province) in late December.
This time, the focus was on China’s leather shoe industry’s preparedness for the 2021-25 five-year plan and Mr Chen’s team visited several related businesses.
Local representatives ranging from tanners to traders to enterprise leaders engaged with the discussions, with covid-19’s negative impact on the industry a key topic of conversation.
Symposia were held in Guangzhou and Dongguan, where Mr Chen introduced and commented on the progress of the “Guiding opinions on the development of the [Chinese] leather industry (2021-25)” project, established in March 2020.
Through a combination of desk and field research since May 2020, the project collected industry data and opinions from Hebei, Shandong, Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, before reaching Guangdong for field-level, footwear-related input in late December.
Ideas on government-assisted digital transformation, design innovation, new materials and supply chain modernisation were all put forward during the symposia. Not pursuing a “one size fits all” policy on industry-level environmental regulations going forward was particularly stressed.
