The average dutiable value per pair of nonrubber footwear was 14.

percent higher in January-September 1969 than in the corresponding period

of 1968 (table 6), whereas the average value per pair of domestic producers!! shipments was 6 percent higher in 1969 than in 1968 (table 3).

Importers attribute the increase to a change in composition and to an upgrading of quality as well as to a rise in costs of production. Further increases are anticipated. The director of the National Association of

Italian Footwear Manufacturers, for example, estimated that the increases in wages and fringe benefits negotiated when the labor contracts were renewed during the fall of 1969 would mean an increase of about 5 percent in prices of shoes and sandals exported to the United States for the fallwinter season of 1970-71. 1/ An increase of that magnitude is not expected to have an appreciable effect on the volume of exports to the United States. The changing merchandising pattern has also affected the competitive position of individual domestic producers, particularly the small independent manufacturers not affiliated with retail outlets. Certain producers with a history of quality merchandise appear to have maintained their position in particular retail outlets, even those of producer-retailers. Other small manufacturers have been less successful in making adjustments.

1 Footwear News, Nov. 27, 1969, p. 1.

Appendix A: Tables

Table 1.--Nonrubber footwear: U.S. production, imports for consumption, exports of domestic merchandise, and apparent consumption, 3-year averages 1954-62, annual 1963-68, January-September 1968, and January-September 1969

1/ Data for 1954-63 are partly estimated. Data on zoris have been excluded from the import figures of this and subsequent tables. Imports of zoris, chiefly from Japan, declined from an estimated 70 million pairs in 1959 to 32 million pairs in 1963, and then to 27 million pairs in 1967; such imports totaled 30 million pairs in 1968 with an average value of 11 cents per pair.

Source: Compiled from official statistics of the U.S. Department of Commerce, except as noted.

Table 2.--Nonrubber footwear: U.S. production and imports, by kind, 1967-69

Source:

Estimated by the U.S. Tariff Commission on the basis

of totals through Sept. 1969 as reported by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

604,173: 629,533 : 580,000

Value------1,000 dollars-----: 2,764,465: 2,973,761: 2,900,000 Unit value per pair--

: $4.58: $4.72 : $5.00

1/Estimated from data for January to September.

Source: Compiled from official statistics of the U.S. Bureau of the Census, except as noted.

Source: Compiled from official statistics of the U.S. Bureau of

the Census, except as noted.