ANCI says the worst is yet to come
07/01/2010
The Italian Footwear Manufacturers’ Association (ANCI) has warned that the footwear industry is still far from being able to speak of recovery.
“It is probable that the worst is yet to come,” the organisation’s president, Vito Artioli, said in a statement at the end of December. “We are still waiting to feel the prolonged wave of this economic crisis, even if the international situation, at a macroeconomic level, is improving slightly.”
An ANCI survey at the end of 2009 showed that only 25% of its member companies were expecting things to improve in the first half of 2010. However, more than half of the companies that took part in the exercise have a worsening debt situation compared to the first half of 2009 and about a third of the companies have complained about an increase in cancelled orders. The industry body said this situation was putting companies under pressure to survive.
“The crisis has certainly been more negative than we could have imagined in the beginning,” Mr Artioli said in the statement.
“The positive sign comes from the Japanese market,” concludes Vito Artioli, “The twelfth client country: after various difficult Seasons, the export data tells us that in the first nine months Italian product sales have grown 6.1%, and the data referring to order highlights an assortment of the fourth trimester in growth (+5.5%). This has to do with a positive indication on behalf of the Japanese consumer who is much more aware of the quality and value of the product - elements which constitute important competitive advantages for our production and which can represent the strategic levers on which to operate in order to relaunch some markets after years of difficulty.”
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