Footwear has been playing and will continue to play an important role in the development of Indian leather industry.  As far as exports are concerned, India still predominantly exports men’s footwear which has a  share of over 60%. However, women’s and children’s footwear constitute about 70% of global footwear market of USD 120 billion i.e. USD 84 billion approximately. And India’s footwear exports during 2016-17 was USD 2.47 billion. Assuming USD 1 billion exports of women’s and children’s footwear from India, globally, India’s share in this market segment is only 1.19%. Hence, our focus should be on tapping the huge potential for women’s and children’s footwear.  Of course, in order to achieve this, we need to make investments in installing the required machinery and update the training curriculum to cover the specific job roles involved in producing footwear in this segment. I firmly believe that besides consolidating and expanding our market share in the men’s footwear segment, we need to significantly diversify into women’s and children’s footwear so as to achieve quantum increase in exports.