$3 billion to be invested in Vietnamese leather and footwear
Vietnam’s Minister of Industry and Trade, Vu Huy Hoang, has approved a plan to develop the country’s leather and footwear industry up to 2020, with a vision to 2025. Under the plan, the investment capital needed for the next 15 years will be roughly $3 billion, with 43% coming from domestic agencies and 57% from overseas. The sector will enter a new development period with targets to ensure sustainable development.
The major targets for 2020 are to turn leather and footwear into a key export industry in the national economy, continue to be among the world’s leading leather and footwear producers and exporters, and create more well-paid jobs with greater social responsibility for workers.
The sector’s projected growth target is for export turnover of $9.1 billion by 2015, $14.5 billion by 2020 and $21 billion by 2025. Long-term goals for the sector’s development include building industrial parks to produce leather and footwear materials and developing more centres for vocational training, scientific and technological research, quarantine, trade promotion and fashion.
Special attention will also be paid to the possibility of designing products and developing human resources for the leather and footwear sector as well as the fashion sector. The Ministry of Industry and Trade will direct the leather and footwear sector to work together with the garment and textile sector and other relevant sectors to give fresh impetus to developing the Vietnamese fashion industry in major urban areas and cities.
Under the plan until 2020, the sector will apply advanced and environmentally friendly technologies for producing tanned leather, as well as the expansion of herds of cattle to reduce the import surplus and boost production. By 2020, total production value is predicted to hit 1.6 billion pairs of footwear, 300 million suitcases, briefcases, handbags and wallets, and 63,000 tonnes of hard tanned leather.
Under the zoning plan for the sector’s development, there will be four major regions targeted, including the Red River Delta, the southeastern region, the north-central and coastal central region, and the Mekong River Delta.
