The new chairman of the Italian Footwear Manufacturers’ Association, ANCI, Rossano Soldini, has identified free trade as being crucial to the industry’s growth prospects.

In a statement, Mr Soldini said that quite apart from the wider economic problems currently faced by the industry, structural change within its ranks was now urgently overdue.  He said the industry’s current make-up of a large number of small business could not be allowed to continue indefinitely. If the future was to be secure, more large manufacturers would need to be encouraged, Mr Soldini said.  But in order for this to happen, greater parity with foreign footwear producers  – particularly those in the Far East – needed to be achieved first.  

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