Leather Industry Essay

Overview of leather industry

The leather industry in Bangladesh is well established and is an important foreign exchange earner. Leather production is based on the use of indigenous cowhides and goatskins which is estimated as comprising 1.8 percent of the world's cattle stock and 3.7 percent of the goat stock. Two opportunities for increasing export value of the leather industry are: ( a) Increasing value addition of the exported products through exporting only finished leather and leather products; and (b) importing raw hides or skins if necessary, and converting these to leather and leather products to utilize the production capacity as much as possible. The industry is entirely in the private sector which has proved to be fully capable of handling it. At the time of independence of Bangladesh the leather tanning sector was already well established. About 30 tanneries were abandoned by their non-Bengali owners and were taken over by the government. Some of these were shut down and the remainder was eventually transferred to the Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC). Subsequently, the BCIC disinvested itself of all its tanneries. A significant change in the orientation of the leather industry occurred after 1982 with the production of crushed and finished leather.
Leather Industry developed in Bangladesh on a large-scale basis from the 1970s. About 95% of leather and leather products of Bangladesh are marketed abroad, mostly in the form of crushed leather, finished leather, leather garments, and footwear. Most leather and leather goods go to Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands, Spain, Russia, Brazil, Japan, China, Singapore and Taiwan. Value addition in these exports averages 85% local and 15% foreign. About 100 modern tannery units are now in operation in the industry. These are located mostly in the Hazaribagh area of dhaka city. In 1998, the