Record footwear imports into Brazil cause concern for Abicalçados
Brazilian footwear industry body Abicalçados has said footwear imports into the country in January reached a record level of almost 4.5 million pairs, an increase of 34.3% compared to the same month last year.
In January, 1.5 million pairs came into Brazil from Vietnam, 1.25 million pairs from China and 996,000 pairs from Indonesia.
Abicalçados said this came on the back of a record volume of footwear imports into Brazil in 2025. In the course of last year, a total of 43.2 million pairs came into Brazil, up by 22.5% year on year.
Executive president of Abicalçados, Haroldo Ferreira, said the record volume of footwear imports for January, on the back of a record year in 2025, was a source of worry for the domestic footwear sector. He pointed out that this was happening the context of a slow-down in demand for footwear in Brazil.
“The increase of footwear coming into Brazil, especially products that are very low in price, is causing great concern. This is to the detriment of domestic production, which reduced last year by 2.2%.”
This figure puts domestic production at around 910 million pairs, of which 103.9 pairs went for export.
