Vietnam ranked among the top five footwear exporters worldwide in terms of export revenue, said Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association Tuesday.

The association said on its website that in the first six months of 2014, Vietnam posted some 4.85 billion US dollars in footwear export revenue, up 21.54 percent over the same period in 2013.

Vietnam remained the second after China in footwear exports to the United States, the European Union and Japan during the period, said the association.

The United States is the biggest market of Vietnamese footwear, with 1.55 billion US dollars worth of products shipped to the market in January-June period, accounting for 31.87 percent of the country's total footwear export revenue, followed by Belgium (6.87 percent) and Germany (5.53 percent).

During the period, China stayed at seventh place in the list of Vietnamese footwear markets with 232.23 million US dollars worth of products exported, an increase of 37.38 percent over the same period in 2013, accounting for 4.79 percent of the market share, said the association.

Currently, the sector's localization rate in materials supply remains at 30 percent in natural leather, 40 percent in synthetic leather and nearly 45 percent in decorative materials.

The sector set a target to raise the localization rate to 50 percent for the above-mentioned materials in 2020.