CLIA, the China Leather Industry Association, revealed that exports of Chinese footwear in the first semester of 2015 reached 5 billion pairs, valued at 24.7 billion US dollars. This represents a decline of 5.9% in the quantities shipped by China, but a 1% increase on the value of external sales by the biggest manufacturer of footwear.

This performance registered in the six months of the current year has resulted in an improvement of the average export price for Chinese footwear.

Looking into further details, quantities shipped have declined in all destination continents, except in sales to North America (+2.9%). In terms of value, it is worth to highlight the increase in value of footwear exports from China to the Asean countries, going up by 17.1%, and to Africa, with an 18.2% increase.

Looking into the overall Chinese exports, in the first half of 2015, growth of 0.4% was recorded, a strong break when compared with the last decades. Exports were the main driver for the Chinese economy during the last 2 decades, and with exports in July decreasing by 8%, the accumulated performance for the first seven months was driven to to negative territory (-0.5%).

The weak sentiment related to the Chinese economy, triggered by several bad news, led Asian markets in August to the worst performance in several years. The Shanghai Composite Index ended down 12.5% in August, its third straight month of declines. European and US Markets were under severe pressure from Asian exposure, FTSE and Dow lost 6.7% and 6.6% respectively.