In USSR every tenth pair of shoes was produced at Minsk factory Luch. In 1996 in order to preserve footwear manufacture Luch was restructured. As a result, five footwear enterprises with participation of foreign capital were created: Otilo - with Germans, Le Grand - with Englishmen, Reilit - with Greeks, Chevlyar - with Slovenia partners; OOO Sivelga - supported by the Russian capital.
In order to promote the goods produced by these enterprises, created with participation of the stock capital of Joint-Stock company Luch, a Trade House Luch was established. According to the Trade House General Director Igor Martsinkevich, Luch now sells about 80 thousand pairs of footwear, the share of Russian-made footwear being not more than 7%. The Russian footwear has to be acquired in order to fill the niches not covered by the Belarus factories. This is true of "fashion" footwear, and also of high-heeled footwear, which was in great demand with Belorussian women this season, but was produced in very small quantities by Belarus enterprises. Questions arise regarding the so-called "fashion footwear". The output of this type of footwear is not enough either, and the Russians, believes Mr. Marchinkevich, are more flexible in this issue. In the interview to' 'Belarus newspaper' he compared Belarus footwear industry with the Russian industry:
" Today footwear industry of Russia is developing very fast, there is an influx of capital coming to it. They work according to Western principles - initially a financial group is created, which places an order at the enterprise with model range and quantities already stated and provide necessary financing. The factory then has a possibility to attend only to the issues of quality, and the buyer takes away the entire order and sells all the footwear by himself.
We are currently working according to quite a different scheme: the enterprise itself makes a decision what to produce, and then - how to distribute it. But the trade also wants to survive. I don't believe that Russian footwear is now ousting us on the market. There is a lot of it, but our footwear would not give in its position. If our boots and shoes are compared with the Chinese and Russian footwear, its quality seems to be much higher. In the whole volume of our production the rejects per cent is 0,1-0,2, whereas rejects of Russian, Italian, and other footwear -6-7 percent. The problems are of different nature, and they are connected not with the quality of our footwear, but with a purchasing power of our population. Now Russian manufacturers mainly count on those layers of population which can pay from $50to $120 for a pair of shoes. For our consumer with average income that would be only a dream. He wants to buy modern, quality footwear for $20. And he cannot afford to pay higher."
At the beginning of 90-ies Belarus footwear industry produced more than 40 million pairs of footwear annually. Several years later the output reduced almost fivefold. According to vice-president of concern Bellegprom Nikolai Yurkevich, the capacity of the Belorussian footwear market is 9 million pairs. 30% of the footwear produced in the country is exported abroad (mainly to Russia, in much lesser quantities - to Poland and Czech Republic).

Source: Belarus Newspaper, № 41
18.11.2002