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The COVID-19 pandemic severely hit the footwear business and in 2020 production fell by almost 4 billion pairs, wiping way all the accumulated growth over the previous ten years.

Despite the impact of COVID-19, the geographic distribution of footwear production was not affected. The footwear industry continues to be strongly concentrated in Asia where almost 9 out of every 10 pairs of shoes are manufactured. Even with a global pandemic, Asia managed to increase its share in worldwide production by 0.2 percentage points.

China is the world’s largest footwear producer (54.3%). However, in 2020 the Asian giant reduced its production by more than 2 billion pairs and continued to lose world share (down by one percentage point). This reflects a shift of production into other Asian countries.