The China Leather Industry Association (CLIA) and China Light Industry Federation (CLIF) recently conferred Huidong county, Guangdong province, with the accolade “production base of ladies shoes”. Huidong is the second official ladies shoe production centre in the country after Chengdu city was named “city of ladies shoes” in November 2005.

The official statistics shows that in 2005 Huidong produced over 600 million pairs of ladies shoes and around 98% were ladies shoes. There are currently 3,186 ladies shoes manufacturers exporting to over 50 countries including the US, Japan and South Africa. The CLIA said that, since 1996, the number of shoes exported has been increasing at a yearly rate of 16%.