Portugal has a worldwide reputation for its quality footwear, lying just behind Italy in quality image recognition, and is to invest a further €20 million in promoting itself internationally.
The plan for the next two years is to attend trade shows in every key export market to show that the Portuguese footwear industry is "the most sophisticated in the world.”
The Executive Director of Portugal’s footwear association, João Maia, said that 90% of this investment will be channeled into participation in international trade fairs and that among the new promotional activities is support for the development of a business communication plan for 50 Portuguese footwear companies, so they can "play a major role and have a different image."
With a budget of €1 million a year this communication project aims to amplify the image of a sector whose objective is by 2025 to have doubled in size from the €1.2 billion exported in 2010.
The trade fair activity has already started and next month Portuguese footwear companies will be represented at 20 trade fairs around the world with an aim of reaching more than 100,000 importers.
Among the new initiatives from the association is an online offering that kicked off this week, and a TV station devoted to the cobbler’s art.
The association's communications director is sending a monthly e-newsletter to a database of over 20,000 buyers from over 100 countries, as well as a quarterly statistics update.
The footwear industry already has benefited from state investment of structural funds totalling €55 million which has produced €12 billion in exports, money well spent as in 2013 exports of Portuguese footwear grew 8% from €1.7 billion and this year record sales are predicted.
With a total of 1,696 businesses employing 41,295 workers, the Portuguese footwear industry quietly contributed to Portugal’s trade balance last year.
