Handmade leather shoemakers were very busy in the late nineties, however imports have increased endangering the trade.
Before Covid-19, Jordan imported about 44 million dinars (RM260 million) worth of shoes annually. These figures are likely to decrease due to the repercussions of the pandemic.
Jordanian shoemakers received little support, and trade insiders believe that there was a policy to flood the market with cheap imports from China.
The decline started in 2015 when the market was flooded with Chinese-, Vietnamese-, Syrian- and Egyptian-made imports.