Compared with Turkish shoe producers who inhabit a fraternal epicentre, the country’s footwear components suppliers (machinery, chemicals etc.) are an outward bound bunch. Unruffled by Europe’s decision to deliberate on Türkiye’s entry to the European Union, their doors are open to the rest of the world and they are a focal point for peripheral countries who want a toe-hold on an axis of opportunity - no country more so than Iran.
Due to sanctions and embargoes against this country, Iranian shoe production is underdeveloped. But 1,700-year-old leather boots unearthed in Teheran indicate that footwear production was a local industry in the 4th century. Sanctions and high tariffs on imported shoes have kept the industry to its local roots, with demand fuelled by some 66 million people.
Iran has three specialised tannery zones that include about 500 tanneries. Tanneries are also divided into state-run and private-sector enterprises. Both have leather production but the private sector turns out many more synthetic (plastic) shoes. Garment leathers are exported, particularly sheepskin and cow, whilst local tanneries consume the bulk of the heavier skins for shoe uppers and soles.
Total footwear production capacity is 350 million pairs per annum and local consumption accounts for half of this. The ban on imported shoes has now been lifted but a tariff on imported shoes of 115 percent scarcely compensates. Tariffs on imported chemicals average about 60 percent. Exports of footwear stand at about $70 million annually and constitute some 5 percent of Iran’s industrial (i.e. non-oil) exports.
According to Teheran-based ‘Leather and Shoe Market’ Magazine, German, Italian and Dutch companies have invested in manufacturing leather soles and uppers in Iran. Although Türkiye and Iran are neighbours, their inherent trading potential in the footwear sector surfaced only recently.
At AYSD, Türkiye’s shoe components supply fair, held mid-December last in Istanbul, many Iranians attended intent on probing untapped opportunities beyond their borders. ‘World Footwear’ spoke with Mr. Ramin Dehdashtaian, managing director of Baspar Lia Chemical Company of Teheran, who came to Istanbul to sell finishing chemicals. “Türkiye is our number one target market,” he said.
Iran holds several leather fairs and, at the Tabriz Fair in July 2002, twenty Turkish footwear supply companies participated, and were eager to liaise, update technology or to host industrial seminars on shoe production in Türkiye. Others, however, worry about the proliferation of counterfeit designs by Iranian firms - a shoe that once fitted Türkiye over-tightly.
Turkish component manufacturers are eyeing Iran as a market with which they have familiar cultural and business ties. Particularly in the footwear machinery sector, a growing number of companies now produce high quality CAD-CAM machinery and, instead of importing from Italy, are actively looking for export markets.
