Portugal’s footwear industry is going to invest 94.4 million euros in the next years: for the records, they will invest 53 million euros in “fairs and marketing”, 25 million euros in “plants and facilities” and 8.2 million euros in “research and development”. Investments “are in line with our strategic plan”, pointed out Luis Onofre, president of APICCAPS, the association of Portuguese footwear, and “clearly evidence that Portugal’s footwear industry is strongly committed to supporting a new boosting business expansion”. Such investments comply with the Community Support Framework Portugal 2020. Last June 273 footwear manufacturing companies were involved in the project: overall revenues coming from the sales volume reached 1.1 billion euros, and over 13,000 workers on the whole were employed in the sector. According to Leandro de Melo, director of CTCP, Portugal’s footwear Technology Centre, “efficient innovation, which creates value, is supposed to hang on three fundamental criteria: creativity, knowledge and marketing”. In other words, “We need to match design with product qualities and marketing”.
Marketing, facilities, R&D: Portugal relies on footwear and invests nearly 100 million euros
