We encourage Hong Kong funded enterprises to enhance their awareness of crisis management and develop new markets.

How can enterprises survive the winter?

Yesterday, the 2008 World Footwear Development Forum opened in Guangdong Modern International Exhibition Center in Houjie, Dongguan.

FerencSchm L, a UN consultant at the meeting, said that China's footwear industry is now overly dependent on the United States, and that 50% of its shoes should be on its own shoe cabinet in the future.

But now, the crisis has come to us.

Customers now buy what they want and become "buy what they want".

DianeM.Sullivan, President and chief operating officer of Brown footwear, one of the world's largest footwear suppliers, told reporters yesterday.

Brown shoe industry has invested in Dongguan to build Dongguan Liwei Shoes Co., Ltd. as the Far East headquarters, with an annual turnover of over US $1 billion 900 million.

In the global market, Brown footwear industry is obviously unable to escape the financial crisis.

Some small businesses stop production and go bankrupt; most middle enterprises reduce their jobs and reduce their scale to control risks.

If this situation continues to the end of the year, a group of medium-sized enterprises will be closed down.

Wang Ying, the Secretary General of the China commerce and handicraft import and Export Chamber of Commerce, said that nearly 1000 shoe factories and related supporting enterprises in Dongguan, Huizhou and other places were closed or removed by the court.

The national shoe making base was swept away, and Wang Ying believed that China's footwear industry entered a severe winter.

He concluded that in the shoe industry, China's biggest competitor is India, not Vietnam.

Vietnam's output has increased rapidly, but it can not compete with China.

But India is different. India exports to the United States, Britain, Germany, France, China, Hongkong, Spain and so on.

"China, on the contrary, relies too much on the United States and other Western markets."

"50% of the shoes made in China will appear in their domestic market."

FerencSchm e l believes that China will eventually depend on domestic sales.

However, he cautioned that the pfer of enterprises to inland areas must take account of other costs, namely the cost of infrastructure and the cost of logistics.

Is the enterprise avoiding "danger" or seeking "machine"?

Long Guoqiang, deputy director of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Research of the State Council Development Research Center, said that after the global financial turmoil, there are different views. One view is that we should seize the opportunity to speed up the pformation and upgrading of processing trade.

"This view is reasonable.

Faced with global competition, this opportunity is very rare.

If we lose this market, we will have a high threshold for re-entry.

I think this is an opportunity, but the government needs to help businesses tide over difficulties. "

The Dongguan government will "take all necessary measures to guide and help Dongguan shoe industry to meet challenges."