From one side they are crushed by unfair competition from Asia, from the other side by economic recession and low demand for their products. Despite all this the tradition of Czech shoemaking still lives thanks to several dozens of mostly small businesses. The current economic results and trends on the shoemaking market were presented at a press conference of the Czech Shoemaking and Leather Association (ČOKA) at the KABO fair.

On the relatively small Czech market domestic manufacturers cannot compete with the mass production from Asia, which is imported at dumping prices and does not have to meet the demanding standards, attests, and environmental conditions required by the European legislation. This disadvantage is most visible in the segments of casual, sports, and fashion shoes. According to the voices heard at the press conference the import of Chinese shoes to the Czech Republic is constantly increasing since 2005 and reached the record-breaking number of 168 million pairs last year. Czech producers, especially small and medium enterprises, practically cannot place their products on the Czech market under this heavy competition, even though the consumers would gladly welcome domestic products – the demand for Czech shoes is rising steadily.

“Although the production costs in China are increasing, the declared price per one pair of imported shoes remained on the level of 2008 last year – 37 CZK. For this price it is impossible to buy the materials, not to mention to pay the workers who make the shoes,” noted Vlasta Majerová, secretary of ČOKA, who also wonders about the number of shoes imported from China. “We have no idea how this could be possible because the number of imported shoes exceeds the consumption of Czech households four times. The only explanation is re-export further to other EU countries,” says ČOKA representative. She blames the cancellation of the anti-dumping taxes in March 2011 for the low prices. According to the numbers presented by ČOKA, importers from other countries have to do with the volume quota of 14 million pairs for 2012.

The second problem that is currently faced by manufacturers, importers, as well as retailers, is the low demand. “The level of footwear consumption per one citizen has been increasing steadily for several years but the economic situation forced people to be thrifty and they now prefer buying cheaper shoes made of textile and plastics,” says Vlasta Mayerová. Besides recession in the past few years the sales were negatively influenced also by the unusual character of this year’s winter, which did not force people to buy warm shoes until the end of January.

The contemporary Czech shoemaking industry consists of approximately 35 companies with over 20 employees and a number of smaller family-type producers. In total, shoemaking companies nowadays employ approximately 4300 people and in 2011 they produced some 4.4 million pairs of footwear. Due to the size of the market there is a greater chance for export, often in the form of production co-operations with west-European partners, and orientation on more sophisticated products with higher added value. Czech manufacturers focus mostly on specific segments such as health shoes, protective or high-quality children’s shoes that are more demanding in terms of production labour and technologies and often require special certification. Professional trainings and seminars help shoemakers in increasing their competitiveness. ČOKA has been organising such events for three years, running an EU-supported educational project “Journey to Quality”, which aims to train 220 employees of 24 corporations. Various groups of employees – managers, business representatives, and retailers – receive technical and special knowledge along with information from IT, business English, sales psychology, etc. “The project helps the members of the association to better know each other, exchange experience in good business practice and to maintain themselves and their employees in good condition in the current difficult times,” explained Vlasta Mayerová.