Despite Italian exports to the CIS area having registered an extremely positive performance in 2017, with +23% in volumes and +15.3% in values, at the beginning of 2018, Italian exports returned to a negative trend, registering a fall in value and quantity (respectively -6% and -6.8%), including drop-offs of -9.1% in value and -12.5% in quantity in Russia.

Although the hoped for recovery of the shares lost during the years of crisis has temporarily come to a halt, the markets of the Russian area continue to be important for Italian businesses, which find themselves having to work in what is an extremely challenging environment. Thus, the Moscow event becomes an essential instrument in intercepting business opportunities in the area. “By now, Russia has become a mature market in which the chronic devaluation of the rouble, the political crisis with the EU, and the renewal of sanctions have resulted in a change in the demand for fashion goods and footwear in particular. – comments Arturo Venanzi, Vice President of Assocalzaturifici in charge of the Russian and CIS Laboratory – In the meantime, also retail has changed: the crisis has led to a reorganisation of sales points and a change in consumer behaviour, with a preference today for a more informal and inexpensive shoe compared to the past and a market range in which competition is now global. Besides designer labels that have held onto their powerful positions, other companies have suffered this change in direction. The cake has gotten smaller for everyone and the market presents a trend similar to those of other mature markets in Europe and North America. Obuv, which Assocalzaturifici organises together with Bologna Fiere, and with the collaboration of the ICE Agency, provides excellent support for working in this complex and especially challenging scenario, and in meeting buyers and distribution for all of the country’s regions”.