Footwear production in the Czech Republic has slumped by 80 percent over the past 10 years, and only 6.5 million pairs of shoes were made by domestic producers last year, according to estimates of the Czech Shoe-makers' Association (COA).

Vlasta Mayerova of COA said: “The main reason for the fall is cheap imports from Asia. Nearly 32 million pairs of shoes were imported from China last year. In 1993, Czech footwear producers turned out 32.3 million pairs of shoes and employed 27,000 people. With average annual consumption of 4.1 pairs of shoes per person, the share of Chinese shoes is 3.1 pairs per person per year."

Although Chinese footwear imports account for 72 per cent of all footwear imports to the Czech Republic, in financial terms these imports represent only 28 pct of the overall value of imports. The unit price for a pair of shoes imported from China was about Kc51 ($2) last year, which in the Czech Republic would not even cover the costs of the materials.

The Czech footwear industry has reacted by turning out products with higher added value which it has been exporting successfully.

As of January 2005, no quotas should be applied to imports of footwear from China to the EU. At present, the Czech Republic has 65 footwear producing companies employing over 20 staff, and a number of smaller footwear producers.