Italian footwear exports down 9.2% YoY in Jan-Sept 2024

This badly affected production activity, with the Istat index of industrial production falling by 8.9 per cent YoY and turnover dropping by 9.7 per cent YoY during the period.

A report of the Confindustria Accessori Moda Study Centre for Assocalzaturifici showed how, with the effect of the post-COVID rebound getting over and after substantial stability, at least in value last year, 2024 closed with negative signs in all the main variables.

Estimating a sectoral turnover that the first 12-month projections show slowing by 9.3 per cent YoY to €13.2 billion, almost €1.4 billion less YoY.

“In the third quarter of 2024 there was no turnaround in the sector's economic situation,” explains Giovanna Ceolini, president of Assocalzaturifici, said in a release.

”On the contrary, more than 60 per cent of companies closed with turnover below the levels achieved in the same period of 2023, with reductions of more than 20 per cent for one out of five companies. The cumulative data for the first nine months, therefore, confirm the difficulties that had already emerged in the first part of the year,” he said in a Istat release.

“The reflective performance of many major international economies, in Europe and outside the EU [European Union], and a geopolitical context that is anything but favorable, which has seen the addition, in addition to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, of another front of instability in the Middle East, have severely penalised [Italy’s] footwear exports in 2024”, he noted.

Footwear exports to the EU declined moderately by 2.6 per cent YoY in the first nine months last year, while exports to France dropped by 2 per cent YoY and to Germany by 6.2 per cent YoY. For non-EU markets, the drop in exports was 15.3 per cent YoY for the period.

Exports of shoes with rubber uppers grew by 8.2 per cent YoY in volume and 1.3 per cent in value YoY during the nine-month period.

On the other hand, shoes with leather uppers, which have always been characteristic of Italian production and cover 65 per cent of foreign sales in value, recorded contractions of 7.1 per cent YoY in quantity and 8.2 per cent YoY in value.

ALCHEMPro News Desk (DS)