Traders and distributors in Guangzhou city used to lay their footwear orders in Wenzhou, but now they found the price for same shoes in Hebei, Henan and Hunan provinces much less than that in Wenzhou city.
One of traders from Guangzhou city explained that labor and production costs in these areas much cheap than that in Wenzhou, more and more shoemaking and leather making companies transformed their production here, the number of shoemakers in Wenzhou shrank from 5,000 in 2002 to 2600 so far.
Although small and medium sized shoemakers in Wenzhou met great challenge nowadays, footwear designing and quality made in Wenzhou are their strong point, particularly in leather shoes; no else place can match that in Wenzhou. Developing high-end markets and brands will be the only way for footwear sector in Wenzhou city. It will be doom for them if back to old way of low price competition. As matter of factWenzhou is a typical example of China industrial transformation to western regions