In recent years, India has registered an impressive growth in its footwear export to US with 46 percent increase since 2003 even though India is having just one percent share of American market.
Sources from Council for Leather Exports (CLE) were satisfied that India has registered a positive trend for the last four to five years.
According to a data from US Department of Commerce, India's footwear export to US has increased by 49 percent during this period and India is the 10th largest footwear supplier and the fifth largest in men's footwear.
India must grab the footwear market because footwear adds 30 percent to its leather and product exports of 2.6 billion. The expansion plans of leather industry are based primarily on footwear.
CLE on its part started a marketing initiative to launch India as a major player focusing especially on US market in 2002.
Some of the promotional steps included advertisement in prominent footwear trade publications, reaching out to buyers and so on.
CLE had organized visits of high profile US footwear companies led by American Association of Apparel and Footwear (AAFA) to Indian shoe factories and help in increasing the exports.
The biggest launching pad for the Indian footwear industries has been the WAS Footwear show in Las Vegas, where at least 50 Indian companies have been able to penetrate the US markets.
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