The company started construction of its mega shoe complex in Chittagong six months back.
The factories under construction include Korean company Young one’s footwear complex which is said to be the largest in Asia. The Export Processing Zones at present have 18 shoe and leather goods factories but there are at least seven large factories under construction, mostly owned by big manufacturers in the shoe world. All these developments look promising for the local footwear industry. The buyers from EU, as well as other very highly developed industrial nations like Japan have reportedly been showing importance in Bangladeshi leather products. Recently, the president of the Bangladesh Finished Leather, Leather Goods and Footwear Exporters Association (BFLLGFEA) informed all concerned that three large investors in the footwear sector from Taiwan would set up footwear factories in the Dhaka and Chittagong Exporting zones. The good news is that a number of foreign investors as well as buyers have already shown interest in Bangladesh’s leather and footwear sector. The cheap labor is prompting top manufacturers to relocate their factories in the country. Despite the high quality of local animal hides both in raw and finished form, Bangladesh was still trailing behind Vietnam and China in the export of footwear and other leather products in the European and other markets.īangladesh is set to emerge as the next manufacturing hub for the global footwear industry. The main reason for this was the natural advantage of leather that Bangladesh produces. These products also enjoyed considerable demand because of their high quality. However, the country has already been exporting finished leather and different kinds of leather products to the overseas markets. Recently, a new opportunity has opened up to further diversify the range of Bangladesh’s export base by including footwear and other leather goods in the list of exports particularly to the European Union (EU) market. If their assessment is correct, in a three-year period the level of exports can increase five-fold from the $205 million worth of shoes that were exported in the last fiscal year that ended in June 2010.īangladesh has a host of potential products that can earn substantially large amounts of foreign exchange, if only the necessary patronage from the overseas buyers is given for the sake of expanding the country’s export base and thereby reach a sustainable status for the country’s export trade. Bangladesh could have a billion dollar footwear export sector by 2013, claim local shoe manufacturers on the basis of both the current growth in shipments and the increased production capacity in factories under construction. Japan and Germany are now the biggest markets for Bangladeshi footwear but US buyers are increasingly showing interest in sourcing from Bangladesh. Among them are Apex Footwear, Excelsior Shoes, and Paragon Leather and Footwear Industries. New footwear manufacturing units have recently been established.
The footwear industry suffered a major setback during the war of liberation but was rehabilitated after independence. Both Bata and EPSI held major shares in the local footwear market.
It began exporting footwear to USSR, Czechoslovakia and England. In 1967, Eastern Progressive Shoe Industries (EPSI) established its production plant. When Bata Shoe Company established its manufacturing plant at Tongi in 1962, it was the first manufacturing plant to produce shoes on a large scale in East Pakistan. After the partition of Bengal in 1947, foot wears were imported from West Pakistan. Various types of footwear were imported, mainly from Calcutta. However, a traditional cottage type footwear industry with limited production facilities existed in a skeleton form in the district towns during that time. During the British period, there was no footwear manufacturing firm producing on a mass scale in East Bengal. The Footwear Industry in Bangladesh has started since the colonial era, although its modernization took place only in the late 1980s.
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