"In the last 35 years, with the reforming policies in China, the purchasing power of national consumers has grown significantly. Shoes costing 200 or 300 dollars can be easily found in footwear retailers", he recently said.

Huang Songfu believes that made in Portugal shoes have everything to succeed in China, the most important world’s economy, as "the footwear produced in Portugal has quality and price to grow in the large Chinese market". He continued, adding: "I am optimistic. As ambassador, I have the will to promote the bilateral cooperation between China and Portugal".

Ambassador Huang Songfu stressed the importance of finding the right partners to operate in China, an economy open to all foreign products and where there are roughly 300 cities with over one million inhabitants, which reveals a booming market.

According to the World Footwear Yearbook, in 2013 China imported 56 million pairs of shoes, valued at 1 710 million US dollars, a very insipient flow but with enormous growth potential. Italy is their main supplier of footwear, as 32% of footwear entering the Chinese market comes from this European country (value).

The same source highlight another key element: China is the country paying the highest footwear import price, 30.80 US dollars, which reveals a significant appetite of Chinese consumers for high end labels and premium products.