Alejandro Delgado, president of the National Chamber of Leather Footwear and Allies argues that better quality and better prices in relation to the imported product have led to large gains in the last decade.

"Not even the increase from 8 to 12 percent in domestic footwear prices hurt sales, especially since the price of imported shoes increased from December (2011)", reports Laprensa.com.ni.

Footwear producers, cow leather producers and the Ministry of Development, Industry and Trade (MIFIC) plan to meet this week with the aim of establishing a partnership to ensure the distribution of raw materials to the sector, and to face the increases in the price of oil and its derivatives.

Footwear producers have already created a proposal, which is that tanneries and the municipal slaughterhouses continue exporting hides, but ensure that at least 4,000 skins are distributed in the local market in order to safeguard domestic production. So far the industry has access to 16,000 skins, but they need 20,000.

Source: laprensa.com.ni

More on this topic

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The footwear industry in 2015 manufactured a record 9 million pairs of shoes with revenues above $50 million.

The 1,300 leather workshops that operate in Nicaragua generated revenues of $50 million in 2015, reaching a production of 9 million pairs of shoes, according to figures from Alejandro Delgado, president of the Chamber of Leather and Footwear and Allied Businesses, published by Elnuevodiario.com.ni.

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Reversing the trend of previous years, increased leather stocks have allowed the industry to project a 20% growth in annual production of shoes this year.

The growth in inventories comes in addition to an improvement in the quality of leather being received by shoe manufacturers, who say that this is mainly due to the fact that the leather they now mostly get comes from the processing plant belonging to the Mexican company SuKarne which started operating this year.

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Leather Footwear Industry

December 2012

The export restrictions on leather enacted in Nicaragua have allowed for a 7% increase in the activities of shoe factories in 2012.

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