Fortuna Bangladesh is ready to expand operations in the footwear industry by increasing its production capacity and establishing the country's first shoe mould manufacturing factory by September.

We have invested Tk 56 crore (Tk 560 Million) initially in setting up the new factories and importing high-tech machinery.

The factory has been set up in Kunia, Gazipur, to expand our state-of-the-art shoe manufacturing facility to produce 6,000 pairs of shoes a day from the current capacity of 2,500 pairs.

The new factory is likely to start operations by September and will produce footwear mainly for the international market, although we also have plans to tap into the local market.

We expect to earn foreign currency worth Tk 200 crore (Tk 2000 Million) a year once we start exporting footwear.

Buyers from China come to Bangladesh as their cost of labor is increasing. Many European buyers are also taking advantage of the duty-free export facility to the EU as an additional 16.5 percent tax is levied on footwear exports from China.

Nowadays, many countries, like China and India, are failing to produce high quality but low-cost leather items because of the WTO antidumping rules. So, orders from Germany, Italy, France, Japan and Canada are increasingly shifting to the local manufacturers in Bangladesh.