Over the next decade, the footwear and fashion clusters want to take a qualitative leap in the process of internationalization, therefore becoming a fundamental reference worldwide. The sophistication and creativity of the Portuguese supply to the level of materials, products, production processes and businesses will be arguments for a better ingress on segment markets where the choice is based more on fashion and technicality than price.
To guarantee that positioning on the international market, the investment will inevitably focus on differentiation, flexibility, responsiveness and products’ quality, in order to become more competitive and superior to the competition, thus creating a closest relationship to customers.
In this context, emerged the project FAMEST – Footwear, Advanced Materials, Equipment and Software Technologies –, which aims to study and develop accordingly to the strategic plan for the footwear and fashion clusters, in areas such as: innovation in design and products, materials and components, equipment goods and processes, business models, digital economy and responsible and sustainable development; and human resources qualification, internationalization and the cluster’s communication.
FAMEST is promoted by a consortium of 23 companies of the sector’s entire value chain (leathers, insoles, soles, chemical products, software, equipment, logistics and footwear), leaders and representative entities within their sectors, and nine I&I entities with multidisciplinary expertise that assure the development of innovative results and its economic value by the promoters in national and international markets.
This cofinanced project by COMPETE Program requires an investment of six million euros and appears as a result of the work the CTCP has been developing, in terms of dissemination, diffusion, demonstration and knowledge exchange in the footwear sector, within the project PROSHOE. The project is promoted by one of the most developed companies of the sector: Kyaia. For the responsible of this initiative, “this is the qualitative leap the industry has to take”. With his experience as an example, Fortunato Frederico believes that the investment in innovation “is a winning bet”.