According to chairman of ANCI (the Italian Footwear Manufacturer’s Association), Rossano Soldini , the Italian footwear industry is taking its first steps to recovery following an ‘emergency’ period. However, the footwear sector continues to cause concern.

In a statement, Mr Soldini commented, “There are some signs of less negativity of the economic trend but the basic market trends remain unsatisfactory."

ANCI has largely attributed the crisis to strong competition from Asian companies in both the domestic and international markets and although there are some signs of recovery, ANCI stated that the recent positive change is not yet sufficient to alter the trend or to have a significant effect on company accounts which have been under pressure for a long time.

According to Mr Soldini, production quantity dropped by 2.3% overall in the first nine months of 2006 compared with the same period in 2005 and value remained more or less stable (-0.2%).

Non-sample data from ISTAT (the Italian statistics institute) referring to foreign trade in the sector indicated that the four main reference markets showed worrying reductions: -13.4% in quantity for Germany, -7.3% for France, -10.5% for the United States and -8.5% for the United Kingdom. However, Switzerland (+5.2%), Greece (+8.1%), Spain (+22.6%) and Russia (+10.7%) showed significant increases both in terms of volume and value.

In spite of the current pressure, the footwear sector recorded a positive commercial balance of approximately €2.2 billion in the period January to August, 2006.