Reebok is shifting its project to sell very low-priced shoes...

Reebok is shifting its project to sell very low-priced shoes from Bangladesh to India. A test for the social project was launched last year, after the Adidas Group's chief executive, Herbert Hainer, held talks in 2008 with Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi economist who received the Nobel Peace Prize with the Grameen Bank two years earlier. The test called for the company and its partners to sell about 5,000 pairs of Reebok-branded shoes at less than €2 in Bangladesh, to help protect the country's most deprived citizens. The objective was not to make any profits for the Adidas Group but to break even or reinvest any profits in the project. However, this proved unfeasible since the company could not find any suitable manufacturers in Bangladesh. Hainer told Welt am Sonntag that the group had to pay import duties of $3.50 per pair for shoes that cost $3 to make – causing the project to become loss-making. Reebok will therefore continue its trials in India, where the project will be supported by the company's permanent infrastructure. The shoes are to be made by Indian manufacturers and sold through informal networks of resellers in Indian villages.