Because Japanese economy has continued in depression in recently years, the consumption intension is keeping on conservative, even appeared the deflation, buying the low-price products has been the tendency on the consumption. Recently, the shoes have been imported increasingly, just reflect the consumption tendency.

According to the statistics of Japanese custom, in 1999, Japanese shoes importing volume were 0.4141 billion pairs, have increased 18% compared to last year. Japan has 0.12 billion population, it means that every Japanese citizen has bought four pairs of importing shoes in 1999.

For difference of the materials, the cloth shoes' importing volume were 0.19117 billion pairs, have increased 22%; the injection shoes were 0.1321 billion pairs, have increased 25%; non-leather slippers were 48.69 million pairs, have increased 24%; the leather shoes were 14.20 million pairs, have increased 17%; the sport shoes were 44.13 million pairs, have decreased 10%.

In 1999, Japanese importing shoes' amount (CIF price) was 260.4 billion Japanese Yen, has no any difference compared to last year. The volume of importing increased, but the amount of money had no any changes, reflecting the unit price of importing has decreased, among of them, the unit price of leather shoes has decreased obviously. Furthermore, the shoes made in Japan were about 0.153 billion pairs, so the importing shoes' markets held about 72%. All kinds of shoes were over 0.55 billion pairs.

In Japanese markets, besides the leather shoes have the controls on the importing quota, the other shoes have no controls on the importing. In 1999, within the importing quota, the leather shoes' importing volume were 11.52 million pairs, have increased 6% compared to the last year, but the importing amount was 47.3 billion Japanese Yen, has decreased about 9.7%, and cost quota about 96%. The importing tariff rate of the leather shoes is about 23% within the quota, the main importing countries are China (46.83 million pairs, increased 27%), Italy (21.45 million pairs, decreased 5%) and Korea (10.88 million pairs, decreased 14%). Except the quota, the leather shoes' importing volume was 2.68 million pairs. Within the quota, one pair of leather shoes' unit importing price was about 4100 Japanese Yen (CIF), but the highest unit importing price was America, 8450 Japanese Yen; Taiwan was 2580 Japanese Yen, China was 2280 Japanese Yen. Besides, non-leather shoes' importing tariff rate was 7.5% or 8.5%.