China, the world's largest shoes producer and exporter, saw a 17.5 percent rise in the value of its shoes exports in the first half of 2007, but prices per pair were lower than that for the previous year.

In the Jan.-June period, China exported 4.4 billion pairs of shoes, worth 12 billion U.S. dollars, said Wang Hanjiang, president of China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Light Industrial Products, Arts and Crafts.

The shoes were priced at an average of 2.7 U.S. dollars per pair, down from 2.8 U.S. dollars for the whole of 2006 when China sold 7.8 billion pairs of shoes abroad.

Two billion of them, worth 7.6 billion U.S. dollars, were sold to the United States, the largest importer of Chinese-made shoes, at an average price less than a third of that of made-in-Italy shoes, said Wang.

Despite rapid development of China's shoe-making industry, most local manufacturers were small, exporting low-end products and earning low profits, said Wang.