Beating high Brazilian import duties — China development, Vietnam production

The challenge

A Brazilian importer wanted to buy footwear from us, but Brazil’s import duties on finished shoes made in China were so high that importing directly from China was not commercially viable. They needed an alternative that kept China-level development and quality but landed at a workable duty cost.

What we did

• Advised the customer honestly that a different production origin — not China — would solve their duty problem
• Handled all front-end development in China: mould and tooling development, all sample-making, plus the cutting-die trial and a mass-production trial run to de-risk the order before transfer
• Sourced most of the materials in China and shipped them to our partner factory in Vietnam
• Ran the remaining processes in Vietnam — stitching, lasting/assembly and packaging
• Customer inspected the goods in Vietnam and shipped Vietnam → Brazil, cleanly clearing the high duty on China-origin footwear

Results

• Gave the customer a duty-workable route to market they could not achieve importing finished shoes from China
• Kept China-level development, tooling and material quality while finishing production in Vietnam
• One accountable partner across the whole chain — development and trials in China, production in Vietnam

Project at a glance