Chinese leather industry urged to focus on branded products
The deputy chairman of the China Leather Industry Association (CLIA), Zhang Shuhua, has urged the organisation’s members to start developing brands of their own, so that they can take advantage of the booming demand for premium leather goods.
Speaking to the national press last week, Zhang said that in the long term, the market could not be expected to support the industry’s continuing reliance on the production of cheap leather goods. Growing consumer sophistication would mean a strengthening of the current trend towards more expensive, branded items, making the development of domestic brands imperative.
As a first step, Zhang said businesses should look at ways of building relationships with the established European and US brands, noting that the industry is now in transition from a focus on quantity to an overriding concern with quality. "The country is short of really famous brands for its leather products, although it dominates world leather production after two decades of rapid development," Zhang said.
The same message was echoed by Chen Huai, deputy director of the Research Institute of Market Economy under the Development Research Centre of the State Council. "It is impossible to achieve fat profits by large production and cost saving. The leather makers should depend on brand names which result from popular design and upgraded manufacturing techniques," said Chen, who also recommended that the industry should also focus on the production environmentally friendly leathers.
"If domestic leather makers achieve pollution-free production, their products will lead to high added value and be popular throughout the world," Chen said.
According to CLIA figures, China exported leather goods totalling US$14.35 billion last year, 24% up on 1999’s output. The country also accounts for the one-third of the world’s production of leather shoes.
