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How COVID-19 affected the 10 largest footwear exporters
After analysing the impact in the main footwear importers, today we focus on the influence the pandemic and subsequent restrictions of movements and lockdowns had on the main footwear exporters in the first half of the current year
China is, by far, the world’s largest footwear exporter. However, in the first semester of 2020, among the the top exporters with available data, it were precisely these country’s exports which have experienced the sharpest decline compared with the same period of 2019 (30.4%), accentuating the slight negative evolution recorded since 2017.
On the other hand, the lowest decrease was observed in Poland (2.0%), which was at odds with the country’s remarkable performance in the previous three-year period, when exports increased, on average, 25.4% per year.
The other top players have also experienced export declines ranging from 12.7%, in the case of Belgium, to 27.1% for Italy, the world’s second largest footwear exporter. As a consequence of the opposite evolutions observed between 2016 and 2019, Belgium and Germany switched positions in the third and fourth position of this table: during this period, exports from Belgium decreased, on average, 0.2% each year, whereas German exports increased 15.5%.
About the Report
International Footwear Trade 1st Semester: The Impact of the Pandemic describes the evolution of footwear trade worldwide in the first semester of 2020, using the data available as of September 2020. The figures presented, both for the current and previous years, correspond only to the countries that had reported their trade statistics by that date. This leaves out some important players in the footwear trade scene, particularly some important Asian exporters but, in the previous year, the countries included in the report accounted for more than 90% of all footwear trade.
Image credits: CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash
