The Portuguese footwear industry continues to consolidate sales abroad, going up from 1 617.5 million euros in the first eleven months in 2013 to 1 752.7 million euros in similar period in the current year.

A good performance in the European Union markets (to where exports grew roughly 8%) is complemented by excellent growth of 10% in markets outside the Union, with a global increase of over 8%.

Two digits’ expansion across several markets was registered during the period, with countries such as Colombia (+240%), United States (+71%), Hong Kong (+46%) and China (+22%) registering growth rates that deserve to be highlighted.

A particular note to underline the performance of the Portuguese footwear exports to the American markets, growing as a whole by 51% in the period.

According to the Portuguese association: “These numbers reinforce the recent performance of the industry which has grown abroad more than 40%, over the past four years”, and are the result of a strategy to diversify away the destination markets, as one of the goals of the Portuguese footwear industry is to deepen the presence in new markets, so that extra EU exports represent 20% of the total sales abroad by 2020.