Footwear Sector includes 10 large companies, 30 medium scale companies and about 3000 small scale
Footwear manufacturers. The Product range includes Leather shoes, PU pouring gent’s shoes , Safety shoes, School Shoes, Leather slippers, Rubber wellington boots, Canvas built up shoes and Flip flop.
The country’s approximate annual footwear requirement is in the range of 60 Mn pairs while the County’s
current installed production capacity is also around 60 million pairs excluding rubber thongs. Thongs
along has reached about more than 25 Mn pairs. Value of this industry is around Rs 60 to 70 Billion. The
current local manufacture’s share is in the range75% ( 45 million )and the balance 25% (15 million) is
fulfilled by legal and illegal imports as well as assembled footwear . The majority of footwear and
Leather Products industries are situated in the western province. With the continuation of the safety
net of CESS the industry has become major foreign Exchange saving industry in the country . 100% of the
country’s school shoes requirement of 4.5 Million pairs is being produced by the local Manufactures. Sri
Lanka’s barefoot population has been eradicated by the introduction of Flip flops . Today flip flops
have been successfully repositioned to cater to the teenage markets fashion tastes and pitched it in the
up market and now have become a major item of footwear exported to Australia and European Countries.
Many factories have facilities for producing moulded rubber soles, Rubber Soles, Polyvinyl Chloride
(PVC) soles, EVA and PU soles. As the progress of the sole industry, shoe manufacturers agreed to
introduce CESS on imported out soles in order to assist this industry towards the long term development.
This has given local sole manufacturers to move forward. Few companies have already ventured into the
manufacture of shoe heels and soles. Realizing that it is important to protect local manufacturers of
this sector the government has maintained the CESS on footwear imports and introduced zero duty
facilities for import of finished leather for manufacturing of Footwear and Leather goods
There are about 6 tanneries currently operating in the country producing 600,000to 700,000ft of leather
per month. In the Leather Industry, apart from tanning, Leather bags, small leather goods such as
Gloves, wallets, bags, purses, belts, key tags are also produced.
Apart from the tanning industries producing Leather, the industry includes 8 large scale manufacturers
of Leather Products’ including 4 BOI companies .There about 1000 SME manufacturers of Leather Products
catering mainly to the tourist market. The bulk of the leather Products and Leather Footwear
manufactured locally are procured by using leather from the local tanneries but export oriented
manufactures use large percentage from imported leather and negligible quantity from the local supply.
The local Tanning Industry was disturbed during last two decades due to environmental issues. Although
the relocation of all the tanneries in order to overcome the environmental pollution was established in
a site in Bataaththa of the Hambanthota District was abandoned due to unavoidable circumstances . Ever
since the local tanners are looking for new locations without any success. Due to this reason
manufactures are allowed the duty free import of leather facility on recommendation from the Ministry of
Industries and Commerce. A quality and competitive raw material base for Leather industry is an added
advantage to excel in the competitive export market.
The present ministry of Industries has already identified a 50 acres of land at Valachchine to relocate
the scattered tannery industries of the country . Ministry of Industry has already finalized a programme
to assist all existing tanneries to acquire latest affluent Treatment Technologies which results Zero
discharge. With this in position the Tanning industry will be able to meet the requirements of Leather
in the country in future.
