China’s one child policy can offer opportunities for footwear companies - BFA
06/11/2015
He said the growth in population and the increasing proportion of young people will quite likely mean Chinese manufacturers will concentrate on producing for the domestic market, but it will offer opportunities.
“It’s economic policy in China to develop their own market, and we quite often have people saying China is quite a difficult place to work with, but I also think China looks at Europe and the west as a difficult place; we put more and more constraints on production and on sustainability and the transparency of their industry - they might think it’s easier to sell to their domestic market where they’re more in control of their supply chain. So if the population increases it will put pressure on their ability to export, but they will always want to export because they will want to earn foreign currency.
“The policy change will also be an opportunity for Western Europe to do more production closer to home. We were very happy in the 70s and 80s to offshore our production, take the advantages of cheap labour in China, but possibly those days will go. There are new markets and areas opening up that will offer cheaper sources of labour and there will always be a demand for cheap footwear, but one of the big positives about China and India is there is a growing middle class for people looking for better quality products, so they are markets we have to see as opportunities.”
Lectra’s Laura Mylius-Prou said she is noticing a shift, and pointed out Made in China 2025, whereby companies are investing heavily in technology so they will be seen as high quality manufactures, not just mass market manufacturers.
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