Italy’s footwear segment suffers in the first few months of 2020. From January to March the segment estimated a loss of 1.7 billion euro due to Covid-19. Both export and internal consumption decreased, while the hours of “cassa integrazione” (government-subsidized stipends) increased. “These data confirms the negative trends that emerged from our research”, commented Siro Badon, president of Assocalzaturifici, adding that government assistance is required. Specifically, he thinks the government should provide non-repayable funds to companies participating in Micam, which will take place next September.
Italy’s footwear segment suffers
Assocalzaturifici’s data shows that export volume decreased by 14.7% in the first quarter of 2020 (52.7 million pairs sold abroad, and 9 million less than 2019’s 1st quarter) and 9.2% in value (2.43 billion in turnover). “A trend destined to worsen in April, other month of prolonged inactivity”, highlights the association in a note. Among the top 15 countries to which Italy export there are only two positive ones: Poland and South Korea (with this one only positive in value). Italy’s market, with the stores closed, is doing even worse: sales decreased by 29.7% in volume and 33.7% in value. And last but not least, are government-subsidized stipends. The increment for the months of April and May was of 2,437%, or 31.5 million hours against the 1.2 million of the same period of 2019.
Negative confirmations
“This data simply confirms the negative trends we have recorded in our research conducted a few weeks ago on the segment’s companies. The average revenue decrement was of 38.4%, with an overall loss of value for the segment of 1.7 billion euro”, commented Siro Badon. “In order to contrast this block, we started an intense dialogue with various institutions. It’s paramount that Simest allows Italian businesses to borrow money to participate in international fairs in Italy such as Micam. There should be non-repayable funds for them to use, as this is the only solution to help SMBs to start operating on international markets”.
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