{"id":16962,"date":"2026-10-19T15:38:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T13:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/italian-footwear-exports-fall-but-the-trade-balance-rises-to-2-16-billion\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T16:51:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T14:51:45","slug":"italian-footwear-exports-fall-but-the-trade-balance-rises-to-2-16-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/italian-footwear-exports-fall-but-the-trade-balance-rises-to-2-16-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"Italian footwear: exports fall but the trade balance rises to 2.16 billion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A barometer with two hands moving in opposite directions. This is the picture painted by the data released on 14 September 2026 by Assocalzaturifici on the Italian footwear sector: turnover for the first half of the year fell by 2.3 per cent, exports for the first five months dropped by 2.4 per cent, yet the trade balance grew by 9.6 per cent to reach 2.16 billion euros. <\/span><\/p>\n

According to analyses by the Confindustria Fashion Accessories Research Centre for Assocalzaturifici, between January and May 2026 exports totalled 4.77 billion euros, with a more pronounced decline in volume (-5.8 per cent). Regions affected by geopolitical tensions weighed heavily on the figures: Russia -24.6 per cent, the Middle East -34 per cent, and the United States -5.2 per cent. The Far East is slowing further (-1.6%) following the sharp contraction of 2025. The European Union bucked the trend (+2%), driven by France (+4.3%), the leading destination market accounting for over a fifth of the sector\u2019s exports.<\/p>\n

The most unexpected news comes from home. After three years of decline, Italian households\u2019 footwear purchases have grown by around 2 per cent in both volume and value. Women\u2019s footwear rose by 4 per cent, whilst sports shoes and trainers increased by 1.5 per cent: the latter now account for over 42 per cent of spending.<\/p>\n

The flip side of the coin lies in the supply chain. The production index from the National Institute of Statistics (Istat) stands at -6.7 per cent. In six months, 151 active businesses closed down (-4.7 per cent) and 3,065 jobs were lost (-4.5 per cent) across industry and the craft sector: the number of footwear factories fell to 3,045, whilst the number of employees dropped to 65,279. The only silver lining on the employment front is that the number of hours of authorised short-time working in the leather supply chain fell by 24.1 per cent compared with 2025, to 12.9 million.<\/p>\n

Giovanna Ceolini, president of Assocalzaturifici, describes companies grappling with geopolitical tensions, slowing demand and rising costs, and sees the trade balance as proof that \u2018Made in Italy\u2019 manages to create value even in difficult times. The call is clear: measures to strengthen competitiveness, investment and employment.<\/p>\n

The figures therefore paint a picture of a sector that is holding its own in terms of value and in neighbouring markets, whilst its production base is shrinking. A growing trade balance is a positive sign, but on its own it cannot rebuild a supply chain that is losing companies and workers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the first few months of 2026, exports fell by 2.4 per cent and turnover by 2.3 per cent, whilst the trade balance grew by 9.6 per cent. Domestic consumption is on the rise again (+2 per cent), but the sector has lost 151 companies and 3,065 employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}