The output value of the sports goods manufacturing industry in Fujian stood at approximately 350 billion yuan in 2017, local media reported on April 3, citing the statistics from local authorities.

The province produced 3 billion pairs of sports shoes last year with the revenue reaching 306.6 billion yuan, making it a major production hub for sneakers across China, official from Fujian Provincial Commission of Economy and Information Technology revealed.

Presently, two main industry clusters for sneaker manufacturing are based in its two cities - Quanzhou and Putian.

Jinjiang, solely a county-level city administered by Quanzhou is home to more than 3,000 shoe makers with an annual capacity of one billion pairs of sneakers, statistics showed.

Among them is Anta Sports, China's leading sportswear brand with a market value ranking third globally, behind Nike and Adidas.

Not resting on its laurels, Fujian intends to further improve its strength and competitiveness in the sector.

According to a government guideline released in Dec, 2017, Fujian plans to build itself into a world renowned modernized production base for sports goods by 2020.

It will ramp up investment to enhance R&D capabilities and look to develop smart sport gadgets on top of ordinary sports commodities through combined development of sports and cutting-edge techs including internet, internet of things, big data, virtual reality and bio-sensing.

By 2020, the sports industry in Fujian should be generating 380 billion yuan ($57.4 billion) in revenue, which will make the province home to the largest sports goods manufacturing base in the country.

A poster of the latest version of basketball shoes by Anta, a Fujian-based sports manufacturer. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]