Call to improve shoe industry
by L. S. A. Wedaarachchi
The local shoe market is flooded with foreign shoes and most of the shoes
available in the local market are imported from China or Thailand.
The price of shoes has also increased sharply during the last few years.
According to a spokesman for the shoe industry the measures taken by the
government a few years ago to discourage the import of shoes by introducing
a tax scheme was not successful.
He said that the relevant ministries should act immediately to improve
the shoe industry and leather related industries in Sri Lanka. He said that
the supply of shoes and slippers at reasonable prices should be given
priority.
Shoes are an essential item of the common man and also for school-going
children. Therefore the prices should be reasonable for customers. However,
the present prices cannot be borne by ordinary customers, he said.
When the Sunday Observer inquired about the present standard of the shoe
industry in Sri Lanka, a high official of the Ministry of Rural and Small
Industries, said that the shoe industry which had shown remarkable progress
under the closed economic policies dropped drastically under the open
economic policies introduced in 1977.
"Locally made high quality shoes and leather related items had a high
demand in Sri Lanka as well as in the foreign market before the
privatisation of the Leather Corporation. The Leather Corporation exported
their shoes and other products mainly to Russia and the Socialist countries,
he said.
To improve the shoe industry and to supply those at reasonable prices to
customers it is essential that the government implements a systematic
development program for the shoe industry.
It has been proved during the last few years that the private sector
alone cannot meet the big demand for shoes by customers.
The present high prices of shoes are due to the unnecessary high cost of
labour, transport, taxes and high scale marketing strategies, he said.
He said that the government implemented the leather and leather related
products development villages scheme under the one thousand industrial
villages project to face the challenge offered by the existing situation.
The main areas of the village based shoe industry namely training,
advanced technology equipment, production process and marketing are met by
the leather industrial village project and that project is progressing
satisfactorily.
The IDB had already provided training to over one-thousand youth selected
from leather product development co-operative villages at village level and
at the leather product development centre at Katubedda as in-house advanced
training.
At present the raw materials for the shoe industry, mainly finished
leather are being imported from India and Pakistan, since the local leather
production is not sufficient for the industry.
It is essential to produce finished leather and raw materials in Sri
Lanka for the shoe industry in spite of exporting raw leather and importing
finished leather.
The Bataata Tannery project which has been languishing for several years
due to environmental issues, should be solved, he said.
The spokesman said under the one-thousand industrial villages project
eleven villages have been selected as shoes and leather related product
development cooperative villages.
The main criterion of selecting those villages as leather product
development villages was the longstanding ties with the leather industry
with those villages.
Under the industrial villages development project the infrastructure
facilities, the equipment for the villages and technical know-how and
training facilities will be provided by the Rural and Small Industries
Ministry.
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