Hong Kong: business as usual for the footwear industry

The level of disruption in the industry is low and depends of the business model: “Some of our association members wo have factories in China are doing reasonably ok as in China everything is pretty much back to normal”.

Where are the issues nowadays? “The business with the US and EU is significantly down. Members who have factories in South East Asia or South Asia are suffering a lot as some of these countries are badly affected by COVID-19. Members who are working with the domestic Chinese market are doing better than before, even though the competition is very high”.

Obviously, Hong Kong is feeling the impacts of the global pandemic, especially the retail business, which is heavily dependent on the touristic activity. William talks about a “bad hit” in the sector given the significant reduction in the tourist’s influx in the territory.

The footwear industry has experienced some issues with personnel not being able to go to work or with some disruption in the access to materials in a very “small scale in the early half of 2020”, but now is business as usual for the local footwear industry.

COVID-19 numbers in the country

Hong Kong, a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China, has a population of 7.5 million people, and since the outbreak of COVID-19 of has reported 9 720 positive cases with the disease, and 165 deaths.

Footwear Industry in Hong Kong

According to the World Footwear Yearbook (available HERE), in 2019 Hong Kong exports increased slightly, keeping the territory in the last position of the top 10 of footwear exporters worldwide. Imports, most of which come from mainland China, increased but by less than exports, keeping the trade deficit at around 600 million dollars.