APICCAPS presents Portuguese footwear as the future of the sector

In 2024, Portugal exported 68 million pairs of shoes to 170 countries. Even so, although it is Europe’s second-largest footwear producer (behind Italy and ahead of Spain), the overwhelming majority of annual production is concentrated in Asia. This is a concern for the sector, and one that Portuguese footwear aims to address through investment and innovation.

At the Welcome to the Industry of the Future conference, organised by APICCAPS (Portuguese Association of Footwear, Components, Leather Goods and Related Products Manufacturers) and the Portuguese Footwear Technology Centre on November 18 and 19 at the Palácio da Bolsa in Porto, industry experts convened to take the pulse of the sector and discuss the challenges and opportunities in a context of technological, economic, and environmental transformation.

At the opening session, Luís Onofre raised the issue of mass production in Asia, which accounts for 90% of the approximately 24 billion pairs of shoes produced every year. For the president of APICCAPS, the current situation is “unsustainable,” but this could change: “We have the knowledge, creativity, tradition and technology to put forward a credible and competitive alternative to the mass-production model- Portugal has clearly demonstrated this ambition.”

A testament to this ambition within the national footwear cluster is the investment of 120 million euros over the last three years in automation, robotics, and sustainability, in what Luís Onofre highlights as “the largest investment cycle in the footwear sector in Portugal” and a “decisive step” towards transforming the Portuguese industry “into one of the most modern in the world.”

This investment has been channelled primarily into two major ongoing projects: 60 million euros for the BioShoes4All project, focused on the development of more sustainable materials, products, and processes and presented in September at MICAM in Milan, and 50 million euros in automation, robotics, and sustainability under the FAIST (Agile, Intelligent, Sustainable, and Technological Factory) project.

Florbela Silva, FAIST project coordinator, who presented the project at the conference, told FashionNetwork.com: “The market is evolving and we have to keep pace with this change, both in terms of how we produce and in the development of new products. Because it doesn’t matter how sustainable, how modern or how agile we are if our product doesn’t sell.”

And she insists that innovation in the sector cannot end with the projects currently under way: “We must constantly innovate and modernise to keep up with the evolution of the world and the consumer.”

Sofia Moreira de Sousa, the European Commission’s representative in Portugal, noted during her address at the conference that the Portuguese footwear industry is “a clear example of how strategic participation and the capacity to adapt can turn challenges into competitive advantage.”

Stressing that automation, advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, and new consumer models are some of the areas that “will redefine Europe’s role in global value chains,” Sofia Moreira de Sousa said that the European Commission’s “priority is to support the industry so that it becomes more aware, more digital and more sustainable.”

At the end of the conference, Rosana Perán, president of the CEC– European Confederation of the Footwear Industry, stressed that “Europe cannot just be a consumer market,” emphasising the importance of putting technology at the service of people and concluding: “With FAIST, an extraordinary step forward has been taken and progress does not mean forgetting tradition.”