During the 5th edition of the World Footwear Congress held in León, Mexico, the international renowned meeting point for footwear stakeholders, local Mexican partners, CICEG and ANPIC invited the representatives of the associations and footwear chambers attending the event to an early breakfast on the second day before the panels and rounds tables began.

During the gathering, and bearing in mind the need to anticipate problems, reduce uncertainties and find ways to accommodate the diverse points of view in the globalised footwear economy, Jean-Pierre Renaudin proposed a new initiative for the global industry: “an International Footwear Forum that would assembly representatives of the leading footwear national associations and confederations in the world on a yearly basis”.

Mr Renaudin further explained that “the objective of this forum would be to meet under a previously agreed agenda in order to exchange information and best practices, address new problems encountered by footwear businesses and hopefully find convergences”.

The proposal obtained the unanimous and overwhelming acceptance of all associations’ representatives, who clearly supported the initiative, and venue offers to host a first forum in 2015 were already on the table.

CEC’s President concluded: “We would first like to contact the other footwear national associations and confederations not present here today and invite them to join as well this forum… This should be the first step to a global footwear dialogue between associations, which will maximize cooperation for the benefit of our global businesses”.