Private Enterprises in Crisis Chengdu: Shoemaking Industry’s “Great Transfer to the West”

While exporting to domestic sales, more and more companies have moved their factories to the central and western regions where cost advantages are obvious. Let’s take a look at the survey of Chengdu’s shoemaking industry.
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Wang Zhongliang is the chairman of Chengdu Danlu Shoes Co., Ltd. In the two months since the Wall Street financial crisis began, Wang Zhongliang has received orders worth 20 million yuan.
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Wang Zhongliang: The contract signed today is for 50,000 pairs, and there may be many more orders in the future.
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Russian buyer Grigory had been purchasing leather shoes in Zhejiang before. However, due to the bankruptcy of the leather shoe company he cooperated with, he transferred the order to Chengdu in 2008.
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Grigory: The global financial crisis must have had a certain impact. The companies in eastern China that we used to cooperate with have changed, but we still need to purchase Chinese leather shoes, so we bring our orders here.
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There are currently 1,700 footwear companies in Wuhou District, Chengdu City, with an annual output of 200 million pairs of leather shoes. Affected by the financial crisis, a large number of shoe companies in Dongguan, Wenzhou and Quanzhou closed down in 2008. Chengdu’s shoe industry has not been fundamentally affected by its complete supporting system and abundant labor resources. Therefore, the Chengdu Shoe Industry was responsible for a large number of transferred international orders. In the three months after the financial crisis broke out, the export volume was close to 100 million US dollars, especially the export volume to the United States increased by 30% year-on-year.