Under the circumstance of environment protection of the nation, leather industry is facing big challenge, environment protection along with sustainable development has become the new innovation trend of the industry. Recently CLIA and CMQFYC have announced the appraise through comparison of “China leather industry energy-saving and ejection-decreasing environment protection innovation award”

Generally speaking, the award have 3 main characteristics which attract the industry:

Characteristic 1:Define the scope of “environment protection innovation”, second-sighted and realistic.
Characteristic 2: 6 steps of appraisal procedure, scientific and candid
Characteristic 3: enterprises join appraisal, zero burden and high return

Annual quality testing of GLM office have started. This testing is ongoing under the “GLM regulation” and is one of the major work of GLM management. 2008 GLM enterprises products quality testing implemented by CLIA and the testing samples are hand in to the national leather products quality supervision and testing centre for further examining.

There are more than five or six thousand private shoemaking enterprises in Guangdong，which is suffering from reshuffle pain，and concentrated in Huizhou，Dongguan，Guangzhou，Heshan and Zhongshan cities. 80% of them undertake the processing trade. The whole industry takes up 25% labor force but generates 8.5% of added value. Compared with Zhejiang and Fujian footwear production bases Guangdong is a most suffered area in this round reshuffle.

Currently reposition the industry in markets and to find out bottlenecks and exert its comparison advantages，and to get ride of current difficulties that has become most desire for Guangdong leather industry.

Self innovation，technology and research are the essential to enterprises development，Guangzhou shoemakers，located in the shoemaking information，news and designing centers，should transfer to technical oriented，upgrade the technical and added value in shoemaking industry. Brand can simply embody the technology advantages of the enterprise，so enhancing on the brand building will transfer the Guangzhou shoemaking industry from processing to creation.

Facing to EU anti-dumping duty and possible trade barriers，experienced enterprises should attaching importance to both internal and external markets，expend newly established markets，for instance on one hand they had very good business in recent two years in Heihe port，on other hand exports to meddle east countries show great increase. “China has a huge market，don’t always focus on oversea markets，products sold well abroad also popular at home.” said Chen Xiaomin，secretary general of Guangzhou Footwear Industry Association.

Guangdong footwear has a strong competitiveness in domestic and overseas market，“Guangdong made means quality and cheap，Guangdong enjoys a good solid industrial foundation，regulating the market，complete supporting industries，labor resources，government supporting，and other favorable environment conditions，and these are the basic elements for leather，shoe-making industry development. Present difficulties can be overcome through renovation and restructure and upgrading. At present，eight counties or districts in Guangdong have leather and footwear industrial cluster，which has a broad prospect of development.

China is the world’s largest footwear producer and exporter，in accordance with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization statistics，China accounted for 63 percent of the world the output of footwear. However，currently China has experienced an unprecedented cold spell in the overseas footwear market. Statistic from Jiangmen Customs show that from January to May this year，Guangdong exported 1.35 billion pairs of shoes，dropped by 15.6% than the same period last year.

A industry expert said that Guangdong footwear exports had a dramatic drop，the main reasons are：the rising costs offset profits; anti-dumping and trade barriers; weakness in self-owned brand and research and development capability,and risk resistance capacity.

In the morning of June 18，China south international industrial materials topped off the second phase project，which includes 330,000 square meters area of textile and apparel and 380,000 square meters areas of leather and leather goods buildings.

The project started from in July last year，these two building took eleven months for construction and will supply a total of more than 15,000 display booths. The interior decoration will be completed within next half year. By the early of 2009 the project is expected to put into operation.

Plus the second phase project the total construction area of China south international industrial materials cities will be over 2.2 million square meters，there are more than 30,000 stores in the city，which has increased 0.5 to 1 billion yuan of taxation for local government each year，and 60,000 people employment for local people. It also promotes the PRD region’s manufacturing sector’s rapid growth，and reduces related industries and enterprises in the logistics and procurement costs. With completion of the buildings South China City will become the largest trade center in China，even in the world with the most comprehensive materials available，the most modern industrial raw materials and finished products exhibition center，integrated logistics business centre and high-end production services base.

On 16，June a Wenzhou group flight to Mianyang for recruitment of workers，this leather group tripped to disaster area for people employment in Mianyang. This first trip composed of 20 private big companies and concerned person from local leather association，which included Dongyi Group，Jinzhou Group，Baoxiniao Group，Zhizhuwang Group，Kangnai Group，etc. It is said this leather group provided 2025 jobs employment for disaster area，largest one in jobs employment.

The production costs is increasing in mainland coastal cities year by year，in recent years Taiwan international brands has been transferred into Vietnam，setting up the second production base. Since the European Union levied anti-dumping tax on leather shoes from mainland China and Vietnam，this year India has become a the most popular investment country for Taiwan’s footwear manufacturers.

Wu Bin，director of Chennai Office of Taiwan foreign Trade Development Council，said in his analysis the recent investment of Taiwan focused on traditional industries such as footwear，textiles and so on，and high Technology and auto making. With the settlement of Taiwan famous brands in India，numbers of downstream manufacturers followed their step and supplying support parts for these settlements in local areas.

Taiwan’s footwear industry experienced a transformation in the late 1980s while faced the appreciation of Taiwan Dollar，wages and land costs increasing. Today，with deterioration of the mainland’s foreign trade conditions Taiwan’s shoe-making enterprises have been forced to flee to Vietnamese，especially to the small scaled factories.

After surveying to Indian Taiwan footwear businessmen revealed that in the mainland raw materials rose by about 20 percent this year，labor cost by 30%，coupled with threatening of the United States trade quotas，and other negative factors，Taiwan shoemakers eager to find a new production base. Due to EU’s anti-dumping tax on Chinese and Vietnam leather shoes，now Taiwan businessmen in mainland China focus on India，India has advantage of large population.

Two reasons for declining：

1. Output grow faster，while the output value grow continued to slowdown

From January to April the above-scale tanneries produced the industrial output value of 27.1 billion Yuan，an increase of 14.7 percent，less 7.2 percent than previous same period; the production of light leather an increase of 11.8 percent，up to 200 million square meters.

2. The imports and exports of finished and semi-finished leather declined significantly

During January to April China exported 5,000 tons of semi-finished leather worth 11.68 million U.S. dollars，both dropped 62 percent and 32 percent respectively; downtrend shown in exports of finished leather，14,000 tons were exported at value of 190 million U.S. dollars，down 52 percent and 54 percent than the same period last year.

At the same time the imports of semi-finished leather was 233,000 tons worth 370 million U.S. dollars，also decreased by 15% and 16% respectively; imports of 78,000 tons finished leather in 870 million U.S. dollars，with decrease of 16% and 8% than the same period last year.