The oversupply of cheap, imports of shoes from China is being blamed for prompting a crisis in Poland’s footwear industry. A children’s shoe company ceased trading at the end of last month after 20 years. A statement from the company cited its “inability to remain financially viable in the face of a sustained flood of highly competitive Chinese goods onto the market” as the reason for its closure.
A sizable price differential between shoes from China and Poland often obliges customers to purchase far cheaper China-sourced alternatives. The problem is seen as having been exacerbated by the cut-price policies adopted by many of the supermarkets which stock such imports.
So pressing is the problem be that only the country’s largest footwear manufacturers have weathered the storm, and then only because they have robust exports sales to fall back on.
