That of leather, is the core business of most of the big Luxury brands, coming to represent as much as 50% and 70% of their turnover. The Italian leather supply chain is the only one that encompasses, at the highest level of excellence, all the links of the value chain in a single territory, within specialized districts.
The aggregate leather sector (tannery, footwear, leather goods, and technology) represents an important slice of Italian manufacturing: it employs a total of more than 130 thousand people (4% of the Italian manufacturing sector), produces more than 30 billion euros in turnover and an added value of 6 billion, or 3% of the added value generated by Italian manufacturing.
In 2022, Italy was reconfirmed as the leading value exporter in Europe for supply chain technologies, tanned leather, leather goods and footwear. Italian savoir-faire is recognized worldwide: the value of exports of the four supply chains in 2022 amounted to about 27 billion euros (+15% compared to 2021). Of these, about 45% were footwear and 40% leather goods, with diversified destinations to Europe, the United States, South Korea and China among the top destinations.
The trade balance is around 15 billion euros (1.7 billion for tannery, 7.2 billion for leather goods, 5.4 billion for footwear and 300 million for technology). We are talking about a “national champion.”
