São Paulo – Footwear exports from Brazil reached USD 79.26 million in April, up 14.8% from April 2016. A total of 8.33 million pairs of shoes were shipped abroad, down 1.1% year-on-year. The numbers were made public this Tuesday (9) by the Brazilian Footwear Manufacturers Association (Abicalçados).
Year-to-date through April, exports reached USD 338.27 million, up 14.4% from a year ago. Foreign sales amounted to 39.67 million pairs, down 1.5%.
An Abicalçados press release quoted president Heitor Klein as saying that the drop in shipped volume was a result of the appreciation of Brazil’s currency, the real. “When these exports whose statistics are being released now were made, the US dollar was worth approximately BRL 3.15, which makes it very hard to compete internationally,” he said. He said the best-case scenario would be a price ranging from BRL 3.50 to BRL 3.60.
The only Arab country in the list of top 20 export destinations was the UAE, which ranked 15th. Sales to the UAE fetched USD 4.84 million, a 26.6% drop over the year-ago period. A total of 584,000 pairs of shoes were shipped, down 20.3% from a year ago.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
