As in the the past couple of years, hide traders have complained abput being deprived of fair prices for animal skins this year as well. This allegation of theirs isn’t baseless. This year the government had fixed the price for per square foot of salt-treated cowhide at Tk 50-55 inside Dhaka and Tk 45-48 outside of the capital.
But the reality is, hides had to be sold at a far lower price than the government-fixed one. If inflation is considered, the prices fixed by the government didn’t increase either compared to last year.
What’s concerning is that the leather factories in Bangladesh import tanned leather from abroad for an extremely high price to meet their demand. On the other hand, hides in the country either rot or have to be sold at a really cheap price.
However there has been no news of hide being buried underground for the lack of fair price and that’s the only consolation. More than 10 million (1 crore) cattle have been sacrificed on Eid-ul-Azha this year.
Half of the total animals slaughtered in the country annually are sacrificed during Eid-ul-Azha. We don’t have the capacity and efficiency required to collect, preserve and process this huge quantity of hide in an environment-friendly way.
Nor much effort was put into building up that capacity . Everyone is trying to defend themselves by blaming others.
There’s a 300-400 billion dollar market of leather across the world. If Bangladesh can get hold of even just one per cent of that, we should be able to export leather worth at least USD 3-4 billion (300-400 crore).
Internationally acclaimed brands buying leather products from here impose the condition of importing leather from abroad as we fail to ensure quality standard of leather.
According to records, around 111 million (11.1 crore) dollars’ worth of leather had been imported in 2020-21. And, the import quantity is rising by 10-12 per cent every year.
The government doesn’t have any such initiative for improving the standard of leather treatment. Leather traders are provided substantial loans from the government, policymakers aren’t concerned about the quality of the leather collected and processed with those loans.
Then again, traders or wholesalers still process leather in the old-fashioned way which cannot even compete in the domestic market let alone the international market.
The condition of the leather factories are not very good either. There are just four factories certified internationally by the Leather Working Group (LWG) for controlling the quality of leather while processing.
Why should it be like this? After the Digital Bangladesh campaign, we are now dreaming of building a Smart Bangladesh. Is this a sign of Smart Bangladesh?
The hide trade intricately liked with the leather industry. There is a huge demand of Bangladeshi leather products in the global market. A few of the companies are doing good business also. Why is the leather industry in a miserable state then?
Under these circumstances, there are no alternatives to improve the procedure of collecting and treating the hide to retain the domestic market. Hide traders and leather industry owners have work on this issue in unison. Plus, the problems plaguing this sector needs to be identified and then solved.
The issue of the hide prices is discussed every year during Eid-ul-Azha. Durable measures have to be taken so that the matter doesn’t disappear as soon as the Eid-ul-Azha is over. We have to increase our capacity in the leather industry as well for raw material.