Maf Shoes has recently taken a move to expand and diversify its products to make a strong foothold in the country's shoe industry.

A concern of the TK Group of Industries located in Nexus Industrial Area at the Outer Signal of Chandgaon in the port city, the Maf Shoes is a 100% export oriented enterprise. It produces and exports sports shoes and casual and special purpose footwear, sandal, casual sandal, casual shoes, flip-flop, rubber outsole, PU outsole, EVA sheet and finished shoe.

Maf Shoes has recently moved to expand its finished footwear from 1.0 million pairs annually to 3.0 million pairs by January 2012, said Hasnat Md Abu Obida Marshall, managing director of Maf Shoes Ltd.

"Expansion plan has been taken in view of the growing market of casual shoes and sandals because China, a major global supplier of this sort of footwear including Bangladesh, has reduced production remarkably due to high wages of labour. Our company intends to grab that unexplored market both home and abroad," he said.

Maf Shoes has all infrastructure facilities with the factory located on an area of 2, 08, 000 square feet.

"This is the highest solo investment factory in Bangladesh with the ability to deliver impeccable quality and punctual shipment with a strong trained workforce."

The factory was established in the year 2006 at the cost of USD 25 million, Marshall told the FE in an interview recently.

Currently Maf Shoes produces annually 8.50 million pairs of rubber out sole, 7.20 million pairs of PU out sole, 3600 metric tonnes of EVA sheet and 6.0 million pairs finished shoes. Lion's share of PU sole is used for consumption of their manufactured shoes.

Apart from that they are manufacturing sports shoes, sandals, casual sandals, casual shoes and flip-flop of different sizes as per order of the buyer. China, Taiwan, Netherlands and Thailand are the major destinations of export of the company products, he said.

The TK Group of Industries, one of the major corporate entities in Bangladesh, also owns Riff Tannery in the same area that produces finished and crust leather for export to Taiwan, China, Thailand and some major shoe industries at the Chittagong EPZ and Karnaphuli EPZ in the city.

The Maf Shoes MD said he has installed the EVA foam factory to develop the backward linkage of the products the company is manufacturing.

Apart from these factories he has undertaken a project to enhance production of finished footwear from 1.0 million to 3.0 million annually from early 2012.

"The new expansion plan also includes annual production capacity of 0.75 million pairs of casual shoes and casual sandals for local consumption," he said adding that it will then be one of the major shoe factories in the country.

Mr Marshall said huge quantity of these types of shoes is being imported to the country from China. Although the country manufactured this sort of lighter shoes in the recent past their overhead cost has currently gone up due to high overhead cost and higher wages of the workers because the shoe industry is a highly labour-intensive industry. Another reason is the rise in value of the dollar against China currency.

Footwear is a highly labour-intensive product. Labour cost is a big factor in the industry. For this reason the manufacturing cost in China has raised and they cannot maintain their quality either. At this stage the major global customers are looking for alternative avenues. Bangladesh can take this nice opportunity, he said.

"Global clients like Diesman (Germany), Kappa (Italy), Oxyland (France) and Timberland of Europe are already working in Bangladesh while giant European buyers like Tasco, HNM and Carriefore are looking for footwear from our country," Maf Shoes MD said.

He however emphasized on strengthening market strategy of the local shoe produces. "The government and shoe industries should organize shoe fairs every six months in all major cities of the country through which we will be able to display our products to the importers from abroad."

"Instead of arranging fairs locally, the government officials in the Export Promotion Bureau always run after organizing trade fairs abroad," he said and informed that many trade fairs on shoes have taken place in different countries but the output is not worth mentioning.

"Shoe industry along with policies for leather procurement and other components needs a policy guideline since the industry has enormous potential in our country. We also badly need trained workforce to produce quality shoes so that we can exploit the advantage through our abundant but cheap workforce," he asserted.

Our backward linkage also is not so strong due to which about 65 per cent of the sports shoe component is imported and 35 per cent is local leather based, he said.

Nexus industrial area at the Janalihat Outer Signal under Chandgaon in the city lacks communication and infrastructure facilities as the only road entering the estate is in a very bad condition.

There are 10 factories in the area including a container terminal. They are Maf Shoes, Riff Tannery, Badgetex Industry, Base Textile, Ching Hung Fibres Ltd, Frozen Fish, Samuda Chemical, Kashmir Garment, now-closed Multiple Juice Concentrate Plant and a container terminal.

Mr Marshall said everyday a good number of buyers from Thailand, Taiwan and European countries are visiting the garment, leather and shoe factories there but they are suffering a lot while entering the area from the Chittagong-Cox'sBazar highway.

He alleged that the Chittagong Development Authority undertook a road development project three years ago but no progress was made during this time. The road has become dusty. "We have urged the CDA several times to construct the road but they did not pay heed to it."