producers in Barletta, i.e. production agreements with high quality producers in Italy. In
particular, there have been interesting agreements between Brenta producers and
Barletta producers as regards the possibility to start to cooperate by specialising in
different stages of production (Il Sole 24 Ore, April 4th and May 27th 2003). On the one
hand, Brenta producers do find it more and more difficult to require high quality
standards from foreign subcontractors (who have no previous skills in footwear
production), whereas producers in Barletta have at least a tradition in footwear
production, although they specialised in a particular segment of the market. On the other
hand, for Barletta producers these business development could be an opportunity to
enter a different value chain, to riposition in new segments of the market, although they
will be downgraded to subcontractors. As in the case of Brenta, this form of functional
downgrading could be profitable for Barletta, as it represents a way to escape from
international delocalisation. In this sense, a functional downgrading as described above
would be a better upgrading opportunity for low quality producers in industrial
countries, to the extent that it allows for a ripositioning into different - higher quality -
value chains.
The evolution of the Barletta district shows that the reasons for its decline are
closely related to the origins of its success. Although as late as in the 1950s there was
no significant footwear production in Barletta, in the following thirty years the district
became one of the most competitive areas in the production of sporting shoes. The same
happened with the newly industrialised countries in Southeast Asia, where there are no
skills and know-how inherited from craftmanship, but simply the ability to sustain
strong investment in production capacity over time, to learn from the leaders, to meet
quality standards and quantity requirements and to establish linkages with global
buyers. In this respect, Barletta shows how this kind of leap-frogging towards
industrialisation is an option even for developing areas or regions, provided that
producers establish linkages with final markets. This argument applies mostly to low
quality producers who face increasing price competition from foreign producers, and to
a lesser extent for high quality producers with a strong knowledge in core production
operations.
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