Brazil’s Minister of Development, Industry, and Foreign Trade, Luiz Fernando Furlan, has announced that, despite its difficulties, the Brazilian leather and footwear sector registered $80 billion in export revenues in 2005 - an increase over 2004.

Mr Furlan said that the export and domestic markets performed well and that losses were confined to the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Area), where sales fell by $90 million - or the equivalent of 23 million pairs of shoes - and Chile and Argentina, where exports fell by a million pairs to each country.

On a positive note, in the markets where the Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) has been active, sales volume and revenues increased.