Vietnam's leather, footwear export up 31% in first 6 months

July 6, 2011
Source:Xinhua

Vietnam's leather and footwear exports in the first six months of the year reached nearly 3 billion U.S. dollars, up 31 percent year-on-year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO) on Tuesday.

The Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association (LFA) said that many domestic producers already received export orders for the second half of the year, making the volume of export orders in 2011 increase by roughly 20 percent compared to last year, and the orders' prices surge by roughly 7-10 percent.

Despite obstacles like high interest rates, inflation and rising cost of raw materials, the Vietnamese leather and footwear industry targeted an export turnover of 5.5 billion U.S. dollars this year, compared to nearly 5.1 billion U.S. dollars last year.

Vietnam exports leather and footwear products to 50 countries and territories worldwide including the United States, the European Union, Japan, Belgium, Holland, France and Denmark, making it one of the world's top ten footwear exporters.

With its growth strategy for 2020 that focuses on the development of supporting industries as well as materials supply, the industry expects to earn 9.1 billion U.S. dollars from the exports by 2015, and 14.5 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, LFA said.