Russian revenge shopping has started: more purchases are made for apparel and footwear, but for shoes the critical factor isn’t quality, but price. A criteria that doesn’t hep Italian manufacturing, at a time during which the number of shoes imported by Russia is growing. Russia has reached once again the pre-pandemic level, as far as the tanning segment goes: Covid appears to have had a less meaningful impact on the CSI area, compared to many other countries. The segment though points out the lack of raw material available.
Russian revenge shopping
According to Rosstat, the statistics’ portal of Russia, the Russians’ expenditure on apparel and footwear has grown 2.5 – 3 times. Even so, Alexandra Andrunakievich, CEO of RSKO (Russian Union of Tanners and Shoemakers) believes that import prices have greatly decreased during the first 6 months of 2021. Purchases went from an average of 12 USD each in 2019 to less than 10 USD as of today. Yet, volume have steadily increased. Andrunakievich took part of an event that took place on August 30th at Mos Shoes (tradeshow from August 30th to September 2nd) and showcased a snapshot of Russia’s footwear industry, which counts about 550 million pairs. Of those 550 million pairs, Russian production only accounted for 93 million pairs (16.6%), the “shadow” market 36.5% (201 million pairs), while imports covered the residual 46.5% (256 million pairs).
Tanning production
As reported by Riamoda, the manager also supplied statistics regarding Russian tanning production. The country manufactured 969 million square meters during the first half of 2021. The result is similar to that of the same period of 2019 (970 million), up 9% from 2020. Andrunakievich also pointed out how leather export grew by 59%, compared to the first semester of 2019. “Export increased involved semi-finished products, specifically wet blue. Yet, we had to increase imports because there is still a shortage of raw material”.
Picture of shopping center GUM (from web)
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