Footwear bilateral trade agreement
22/07/2008
The national footwear industry bodies of Italy (ANCI) and Brazil (Abicalçados) have agreed to work together towards improving current footwear trade conditions between the two countries.
The associations are asking their governments that the duty imposed on footwear imports be reduced to zero from the current 35% and 8% charged by Brazil and Italy respectively.
At the moment, the footwear trade balance is far more favourable to Brazil; it exported 2 million pairs to Italy in 2007 while Italy shipped just 70,000 pairs to Brazil in the same period.
“Brazil is a very interesting market for the Italian footwear sector. It is a growing country where a fairly large number of consumers can afford to buy Italian shoes at an average price of EUR 84,” said Andrea Brotini, ANCI vice-president.
Abicalçados president, Milton Cardoso, highlighted that this agreement will certainly bring benefits to manufacturers and to final consumers in both countries.
Another point of this agreement is to firm up Brazilian participation at Italian fairs such as Micam, where Brazil is usually represented by more than 30 companies.
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