I. Why Sichuan's Footwear Industry Matters

In China's footwear industry landscape, Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang dominate the mainstream narrative. Sichuan is often overlooked, yet one fact is hard to ignore: Chengdu was the only city in western China to rank among the country's four major shoe-producing centers, hitting peak annual output of over 600 million pairs of leather shoes in the early 2000s, with women's shoe exports accounting for one-third of the national total.

This was no accident. Sichuan's abundant labor supply, proximity to leather raw material sources, and the policy tailwinds of China's Western Development Strategy enabled Chengdu to grow rapidly into a national hub for women's footwear alongside Wenzhou, Quanzhou, and Guangzhou. Beyond scale, the city also incubated homegrown brands such as Aiminr and Camedo, and established export channels across more than 120 countries.

After 2008, however, urban expansion and industrial upgrading policies scattered the shoe enterprises. The price transparency brought by e-commerce platforms further compressed margins. This structural disruption mirrors the challenge facing manufacturing cities across central and western China: how to manage industrial relocation while upgrading capabilities as labor costs rise and urban space shrinks.

Sichuan's footwear story thus carries both research value and broader relevance.

II. Geographic Clusters: One Capital, Two Parks, and a New Pole

Chengdu Wuhou: The Historical Core

Wuhou District is the original anchor of Sichuan's footwear industry. In late 2005, the China National Light Industry Council and China Leather Industry Association officially awarded Wuhou the title "China's Women's Shoe Capital." Chengdu subsequently established a spatial framework of "one capital, two parks": the Wuhou Women's Shoe Capital, the Chongzhou Footwear Industrial Park, and the Jintang Footwear Industrial Park.

At its peak, Chengdu's footwear and supporting enterprises numbered nearly 3,000, producing around 600 million pairs annually — over 95% women's shoes — exported to more than 120 countries. Annual self-operated exports reached over USD 30 million (per Chengdu Footwear Import and Export Chamber data).

After 2008, urban renewal and rising land costs drove enterprises outward. By around 2024, fewer than 500 firms with meaningful scale remained, and annual output had fallen to approximately 200 million pairs — roughly a 60% decline from the peak.

Ziyang Anyue: The New Western Base

In 2013, Anyue County in Ziyang seized the "eastward-to-westward shoe migration" opportunity, launching infrastructure investment in its footwear industrial park. By 2017, as large-scale relocation from Chengdu accelerated, Anyue attracted over 200 footwear enterprises.

Growth accelerated from there. According to People's Daily (November 2024), Anyue now hosts 113 footwear firms, achieving 70% local sourcing of shoe materials and 80% supply chain completeness. Output reached 34 million pairs in 2023 and exceeded 42 million pairs in 2024 — a 24% year-on-year increase — placing it first among emerging footwear bases in the Chengdu-Chongqing region. The park supports over 19,000 jobs, with local employees exceeding 80% and a 93% job retention rate.

Anyue focuses on athletic and casual footwear — a distinct niche from Wuhou's fashion women's shoes — and hosts contract manufacturing for over 20 domestic and international brands including Belle and Skechers. It also extends production into 117 "satellite factories" across 32 townships in the county.

III. Leading Enterprise Landscape

Among Chengdu's homegrown brands, Aiminr stands out as one of the few to achieve meaningful brand premium — its sub-brand sheme was once presented as a diplomatic gift to a visiting foreign dignitary's spouse. Camedo is known for high design variety and commands a stable presence in domestic wholesale channels.

On the export side, Shuangliu District in Chengdu is a key node. In 2023, the district exported approximately USD 650 million worth of footwear, primarily OEM orders destined for Russia, Spain, and Brazil.

Ziyang Anyue's park relies mainly on inbound brand orders, led by Belle and Skechers contract work. Development of homegrown local brands is still at an early stage.

IV. Supply Chain Structure

Sichuan's footwear supply chain has a relatively clear upstream-downstream logic:

Upstream: Leather raw materials are sourced primarily from Sichuan's livestock sector (particularly cattle hides from the Sichuan Basin) and from other provinces or imports, processed by local tanning facilities before reaching footwear manufacturers. Feather-based products are tied to Sichuan's poultry sector but remain modest in volume relative to footwear.

Midstream: Footwear production is concentrated in Chengdu and Ziyang. Anyue's 92 shoe material production lines achieve 70% local sourcing, reducing inter-provincial logistics. Satellite factories in townships handle assembly overflow.

Downstream: Sales channels have evolved from wholesale markets to branded retail to e-commerce to live-streaming. According to Pengpai News (2024), Chengdu's women's shoe industrial belt generated over CNY 4 billion in Douyin (TikTok China) GMV that year, with order volumes up 15% year-on-year. Cross-border exports also expanded sharply — the number of Chengdu shoe firms engaged in cross-border commerce grew from under 200 in late 2023 to over 500 by August 2024.

V. Challenges and Transformation Directions

The challenges facing Sichuan's footwear sector are multi-layered:

Cost pressure. Land and labor costs in Chengdu's core urban areas no longer offer competitive advantage; some production continues migrating to counties within Sichuan or to neighboring Yunnan and Guizhou.

Narrow product mix. Chengdu's women's shoe sector has long been driven by wholesale logic in fashion footwear, with limited design value-add. Brand building lags behind the industry leaders of Guangdong and Zhejiang; Aiminr-type successes remain exceptions.

Supply chain gaps. Compared to the mature ecosystems of Jinjiang (Fujian) or Dongguan (Guangdong), Sichuan's sourcing of precision accessories — adhesives, metal components, specialty linings — depends heavily on external suppliers. Local completeness still has room to grow.

Transformation is unfolding along three axes: expanding live-streaming and cross-border e-commerce coverage; redistributing capacity through承接 bases like Anyue; and differentiating on handcraft techniques and design innovation to compete in mid-to-high-end women's footwear.

Sales teams supplying upstream materials — leather, soles, adhesives, hardware fittings — to footwear factories in Sichuan can use Tianxia Gongchang to filter factory directories and decision-maker contacts by region and product category, improving cold outreach efficiency.

VI. Research Institute Observations

The evolution of Sichuan's footwear industry reflects a recognizable pattern: incubation in a central city, gradual outward migration, and eventual reconsolidation into a new spatial structure. Wuhou's contraction is not an endpoint — it is a recalibration, with live-streaming and overseas expansion as the new levers. Anyue's rapid cluster formation demonstrates real capacity in Sichuan's inland counties to absorb relocated capital and orders.

Whether these two poles can form a complementary dual-core structure depends on how quickly local brands can be built, and whether the industry can establish genuine design and manufacturing barriers before the incremental gains from live-streaming plateau. That is the defining question for Sichuan's footwear sector in the next five years.

Data Sources

  • Tianxia Gongchang (Sichuan leather and footwear factory directory and industry data)
  • China National Light Industry Council and China Leather Industry Association (Women's Shoe Capital designation materials)
  • People's Daily Sichuan Channel (Ziyang Anyue footwear industry development coverage, November 2024)
  • China News Service (Ziyang as western China's largest athletic shoe base, October 2024)
  • Pengpai News (Chengdu women's shoe live-streaming GMV data, 2024)
  • CRI International Online Sichuan (Chengdu women's shoe cross-border export coverage, August 2024)
  • Sichuan Provincial Market Supervision Administration (Anyue footwear supply chain quality notice, December 2024)
  • Sichuan Online (Chengdu women's shoe output decline and live-streaming rebound, September 2024)