Kunming city in Southeast China’s Yunnan province produces more than 10 million pairs of leather and fabric shoes every year, with a total annual output value of about 1 billion yuan ($160 million).

The latest shoe industry statistics were announced by the newly founded Kunming Alliance Footwear Industry Association whose inauguration ceremony took place on May 4.

“More than 40 percent of the shoes made in Kunming are exported to Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and Myanmar,” said Chen Yanyun, vice president of the association at the ceremony. “We set the average price at 40 yuan for each pair according to the consumption level of the export destinations. Each year, we earn 160 million yuan from footwear exports to Southeast Asia,” he added.

Decades ago, there were more than 2,000 shoemaking enterprises in Kunming. As competition proved to be increasingly fierce over time, only 500 of them have survived. The Footwear Industry Association was, therefore, founded to enhance communication and cooperation among those local enterprises and to strengthen management, said Zhang Xingyi, vice president of the association.

Edited by Mevlut Katik