The Research On The Upgrading Of Chinese Industrial Clusters Of Footwear Under The Global Value Chains

Under the background of the global recession, the external demand is declining and the price of production factors such as resources and labor is rising. Footwear industry in China, as a typical labor-intensive one, most of the products are in the low end of the global value chain because of the low technical level. Facing the fierce competition from many countries, the Chinese footwear industry is in bottleneck period. In order to promote the sustainable development of China’s footwear industry clusters and improve its international competitiveness, research issues of footwear cluster upgrade is imminent. Global value chain is a new theory researching cluster development and emerging from a global commodity chain. It mainly analyze the global industrial clusters and upgrade issues from the micro and macro levels. The theory provides a theoretical foundation and research ideas for the upgrade of Chinese footwear industry cluster.Chinese footwear industry clusters occupy certain advantage with its low cost, but this advantage is limited to the leading number. In terms of the global value chain, China’s footwear industry is facing a low value-added situation, which is more prevalent. There is a series of obstacles and problems in cluster upgrade. The paper uses location quotient method to locate Chinese footwear cluster advantages in Fujian, Guangzhou and Zhejiang provinces. And it summarizes the problem the cluster upgrade is facing on the status of the footwear industry cluster development analysis:cost rising, International Anti-dumping quality problems and lower product quality. Based on the theory of global value chains, the paper summarizes the factors that influence Chinese footwear cluster upgrade, including dynamic mechanism, governance, business factor, government factor and industry associations. The paper also locates Chinese footwear cluster in the buying behavior and market-driven chain, relational governance and leadership type. It compares and analyzes the characteristics of various types of clusters by listing the different governance models of typical footwear cluster in China and foreign countries, finally gets upgrading inspiration. Combined with Chinese footwear cluster upgrade issues and cases, the article concludes enterprises should pay more attention to their own sense of learning and improve the innovation capacity. In the meantime, the government should implement appropriate guiding and promoting policies. In addition, China’s footwear cluster can be promoted better through strengthening the coordination and knowledge sharing within the industry.