SHANGHAI (AFP) -- Nearly 1,000 Chinese shoemakers have gone bankrupt in southern China, unable to make end meets under increasingly tough business conditions, state press said Wednesday.

Anti-dumping measures, a stronger local currency, increased labor and material costs, and a rolling back of export tax breaks has led to the wholesale bankruptcy in Guangdong Province, the China Business reported.
The state run newspaper, citing a report from the Asia Shoe Industry Association, said that 1,000 smaller and medium footwear and accessory producer had shut operations this year.
Up to 500 companies closed their doors in the last three months alone, as Guangdong's shoe industry faces competition that was 10 times stiffer than the 1990s, the paper quoted Asian Shoe Association Secretary Li Peng, as saying.
Guangdong is a shoe manufacturing hub for China and the world, with 7,000 to 8,000 shoe factories, according to the China Leather Association.
In the city of Dongguang, home to 1,000 shoemakers alone, up to 300 firms had closed, Li said.
These smaller companies, which rely on cheap pricing strategies and often have weak management practices, are increasingly unable to compete against larger, better operated companies, according to Li.
However, Li said that the closure of these weaker firms was not necessarily a bad thing as it would weed out the poor quality manufacturers, thus improving the development of the industry as a whole.
""For firms with high-added value it could provide a better environment for competition,"" he said.
China's shoe industry has come under huge pressure from overseas as the European Union last year and Taiwan this year enacted anti-dumping tariffs, according to the paper.
The industry had also suffered from recalls overseas of Chinese-made exports, one of the many industries to have been hit by the global concerns over the safety and quality of made-in-China products.