Pakistan Tanners Association's (PTA) Chairman Fawad Jawed said here on Tuesday that a small support from the Ministry of Commerce could help boost leather products' export to $3 billion in the next three years, making the industry second biggest after textile. He said that contrary to the huge potential of leather products, exports of the leather industry had remained stagnant at $1.22 billion for the last six years. Read More
APLF and SIC, the organizers of Materials, Manufacturing & Technology (MM&T), announce that France has been confirmed to be the Focus Country at MM&T & FA, which will take place from 30th March to 1st April 2015 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Read More
The leather and footwear industry in Rwanda has got a boost with the establishment of a Leather Community Processing Center (CPC) with technical cooperation from the Government of Italy.
With the intention of increasing exports and stimulate growth of the Brazilian leather sector, the Association of Leather Artifacts and Travel Articles Manufacturers (ABIACAV), has launched a new brand under which all leather artifacts, especially leather handbags and travel accessories, from the country would be identified, titled ‘Brazil by Bags’.
At a time when the government expect to earn 67.6 million dollars from the export of leather, around 100 leather producers and exporters took part in the All African Leather Fair, at Millennium Hall on Bole Road.
The Yokohama-based Japanese leather factory Hiroki has announced a long-term plan to produce leather products in Ethiopia. Hiroki will be the first Japanese company to operate in Ethiopia, opening its manufacturing plant in the capital Addis Ababa as part of its 13-year operational plan. "We have been a major market for Ethiopia's sheep leather for many years and now we have come up with an idea to begin manufacturing here," Youngil Song, general manger of Hiroki Addis, told The Reporter.
According to the information released by China Leather Network, there is no change in average MFN tariff of 12.6 percent for leather products imports.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed a new decree with the objective of promoting leather and footwear industries of Russia, under which the exports of raw hides and skins for leather and semi-finished leather from the country would be banned for a temporary period of six months.
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The absence of a factory to process hides and skin into leather is hindering the growth of the leather industry in Uganda, Emmanuel Mwebe, the coordinator of the Uganda leather and Allied Industries Association, has said.
Hiroki Co. Ltd, a Japanese-based leather producing factory, is set to start production in Ethiopia in mid-March, with an investment of close to 10 million Br.
Published: 24 December, 2013
The Ethiopian House of Peoples' Representatives passed the revised Raw Hides, Skins & Hides Marketing Proclamation during its ninth regular session, The Reporter reported.
The law is said to streamline raw hides and skins trading process and strengthen the care accorded to hides and skins.
According to the proclamation, the law is aimed at to target the existing challenges in the supply and quality of leather and hide, and expanding a modern and fair trade system.
The revised law will limit the number of people involved in the marketing process with no contribution to the supply chain, to reduce prices.
The government has stepped up measures to curtail the exportation of raw hides by introducing a US$0.75 export tax on every kilogram of raw hide in a move that is expected to boost value addition in the leather industry.
During the past 10 years, the leather sector has been failing to absorb all raw hides and skins that are produced leading to more hides being exported from Zimbabwe in their raw form.
In 2011 alone, a total of 5,440 tonnes of raw hide including crocodile skins worth US$28 million were exported. During the same year, a total of 2.2 million pairs of foot wear were produced while four million pairs of mainly cheap synthetic shoes were imported, essentially making Zimbabwe net importer of footwear.
Minister of Finance and Economic Development Patrick Chinamasa during the presentation of the 2014 National Budget last week said the introduction of export tax would help revive the sector, which was operating at less than 50% capacity."The leather industry currently operates at capacity levels of between 25-40% due to inadequate raw material supply, since leather merchants prefer to export the hides in raw form. I propose to levy an export tax of US$0.75 per kg on raw hides, in order to encourage value addition," he said.
This move by Government is expected to support the Zimbabwe Leather Sector Development Strategy, which was launched in June and expected to make the country's leather sector a vibrant and internationally competitive industry.
The strategy seeks to improve the leather sector in Zimbabwe and generate US$116 million in revenue by 2017 compared to US$82 million in 2011 at current sales and margins by 2017.
The main objective of the strategy is to transform the Zimbabwe leather value chain from the production and export of raw materials and semi processed products to the production and export of value added products such as finished leather footwear and other garments. In October, Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha said Government would adopt a cluster approach to value addition in the manufacturing industry in an effort to revive the areas that have been most affected by the demise of the sector."The sectors that have been prioritised include Leather and Allied products, Clothing and Textiles and Pharmaceuticals manufacturing," he said.
Source: http://www.internationalleathermaker.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/361
The footwear industry is expected to reach a record export value of more than US$8 billion this year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Footwear exports reached $7.9 billion as of the middle of December, a rise of nearly 15% against the corresponding period last year, according to the General Department of Customs.
A representative from the Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association said local tanneries had met only 20-30% of material demand of local shoemakers.
To get good quality materials, shoemakers have to import leather from Brazil, Italy and the US at high prices.
According to the ministry, Vietnam imports 6 million sq m of tanned leather every year. Last year, imports amounted to more than $3 billion. Many footwear importers are shifting their orders from China to Vietnam because of lower labour costs and preferential tariffs that will be granted this year by the EU. The tariff will drop to 3-4% from the current 13-14%, according to the ministry.
Of the total amount of footwear exports, the US accounted for the largest source of export revenue, followed by the UK, Belgium, Germany and Japan, the Netherlands, China, Brazil and Spain.
Last year, Vietnam’s footwear exports reached $7.2 billion. The footwear industry, however, still depends on material imports as it does not have enough local supplies.
Experts said the footwear industry would benefit when Vietnam joins the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement. But to receive the full benefits, the industry must use local materials or imported materials from TPP members to enjoy zero tariffs. Experts also urged domestic companies to make more efforts to improve quality and productivity. As the global economy has yet to recover, key markets for Vietnamese footwear have slumped, and, as a result, companies must plan accordingly.
This is vital because foreign-direct investment companies have contributed more than 76% of the industry’s total export value. Currently, around 1,100 companies are involved in footwear production in the country, employing 720,000 workers. In addition, there are thousands of individual producers and handicraft villages that take part in export activities. With this capacity, the Vietnamese footwear industry is expected to meet increasing export demand.
Source: FDRA as cited by http://www.internationalleathermaker.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/369
Four tanneries operating in and around Mali’s capital city, Bamako, say a government decision to disconnect them from a common effluent treatment plant is unfair. The four companies at the centre of the controversy are West Africa, IMAT, Tamak and Nouvelle Tannerie du Mali.
The tanneries learned of the decision earlier in November 2013, with the authorities claiming that the leather producers were doing too little to carry out primary effluent treatment before sending waste water to the common plant. The common effluent treatment plant, which is in Sotuba, processes effluent from more than 30 industrial facilities in the Bamako region. The tanneries had their access to the plant cut off on November 4, 2013 and have been unable to operate since.
But at a press conference on November 15, representatives of the leather industry in the African country said the decision was completely arbitrary and unfair. Ahmed Diadié Ascofaré, who runs one of the tanneries affected, said he would prefer a return to the way of working before the common effluent treatment plant was in place, with each company taking complete responsibility for its own waste management. He said the common effluent treatment plant was incapable of carrying out effective treatment of the waste.
At the same press conference, the president of the local tanning industry association, Hamidou Traoré, said 400 jobs were directly under threat from the government’s action, with a further 1,000 jobs indirectly dependent on the four tanneries.
In addition, Mr Traoré said 700,000 people in Mali make a living from activities related to the collection of hides and skins, with Bamako’s four tanneries alone processing between 10,000 and 12,000 hides and skins every day. He said Mali is currently able to export around 6 million processed hides and skins each year, bringing more than $50 million into the economy. He called on the government to allow the capital’s tanneries to start production again as soon as possible. “Each day of this imposed closure is costing Mali money,” he said.
He said the decision had come at the worst possible time because a large amount of raw material had been collected following the Eid al-Adha festival, which fell in October this year, and was now awaiting processing. Mr Traoré said his organization would go to court to have the government decision overturned.
Source: http://www.leatherbiz.com//fullitem2.aspx?id=132122
Italian leather chemicals manufacturer Silvateam will have an innovative hybrid tannage idea on display at the India International Leather Fair in Chennai, February 1-3.
The new system uses a combination of chrome salts and Blancotan CAT, a new syntan based on dihydroxydiphenyl, a sulphone condensation product with cationic charge.
Blancotan CAT can be used alone on pickled hides as a pretanning agent to produce a wide range of chrome-free leather articles with what Silvateam describes as “a user-friendly process”. Alternatively it can be used with conventional chromium salts in any proportion to obtain low-chrome tannages with high exhaustion floats.
http://www.leatherbiz.com//fullitem2.aspx?id=132416
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Leather and Leather Products Institute (LLPI) has urged its member states including Zimbabwe to implement strategies to improve the capacity utilization of their leather industries and product quality so as to satisfy the existing 270 million shoes market deficit in the trading bloc.
COMESA/LLPI director Dr Mwinyikione Mwinyihija said Africa played an integral role in the leather industry in the world through the provision of 21 percent of the global livestock and 14 percent of the total hides and skins but said the continent was not benefiting much from its resources owing to failure to add value to its products.
He said this after the graduation of 45 Small to Medium Enterprises shoe manufacturers in Bulawayo in November, 2013. The students underwent a two-week course in leather production funded by COMESA/ LLPI.
After the graduation ceremony Dr Mwinyihija and the chairman of the Leather Institute of Zimbabwe, Mr Nicoh Mpofu, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on behalf of the two parties (LLPI and LIZ). “Africa is the home of hides and skins because it has a total of 21 percent of the total livestock production in the whole world and it supplies 14 percent of the total hides and skins to the world.
“However, the biggest bottleneck that we have in Africa is translation of the resources we are producing to value. Out of the 14 percent we are producing in this world 3.32 percent is actualized as value meaning we are losing almost 11 percent,” Dr Mwinyihija said.
He said the foreign currency earned through leather export would have gone a long way in ensuring rural development programmes and employment creation. Dr Mwinyihija said Comesa LLPI was working towards ensuring the quality of leather of its 19-member state improves.
“The potential is very high because we have to fast recover the 11 percent that is lost within the supply chain and build at the national level the capacity that the hides and skins can be produced to a level where the leather products can actually sustain the economic enterprises,” he said.
Dr Mwinyihija said shoe manufacturers including Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) should strive to enhance their production so as to meet the estimated demand of one billion pairs of shoes by 2015 to 2016.
“In Comesa 400 million people wear shoes meaning the shoe per capita is around 0.85, which translate to 85 percent with 320 million pairs of shoes being demanded per year. We import about 80 million pairs of shoes a year meaning the deficit is 240 million pairs of shoes.
“Our local (COMESA) manufacturers only produce about 70 to 100 million pairs of shoes per year of which we have to encourage our SMEs to up their production and quality as we have a ready market. By 2015 to 2016 the whole of Africa will need over one billion pairs of shoes per year,” he said.
Dr Mwinyihija said Zimbabwe was in track of ensuring the revival of its leather industry following the formulation of a leather sector strategy, which is, however, yet to be implemented.
Mr Mpofu said the country’s leather industry was lagging behind compared to countries such as Ethiopia and Uganda due to a lack of policies that promote importation of value-added products. He, however, said the standard of shoes and leather products manufactured by the country’s SMEs was good but the quality of leather was impacting negatively on their finished products.
“The standards (of our SMEs) are very good. Even the director of COMESA also acknowledged that it is the best that he has seen in his tour of the various countries. We are in the right track all we need is to improve on the quality of leather.
“The signing of the MoU sets the stages that will have to be followed in the strategy and we are in line with Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation where it is talking about SMEs in clusters and this is exactly what we are doing,” Mr Mpofu said.
The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Small to Medium Enterprises and Cooperative Development Mrs Evelyn Ndlovu said the Government was in the process of according SMEs improved infrastructure to work from in line with the SMEs Infrastructural Development policy which came into effect in 2011.
Source: Dumisani Nsingo Senior Business Reporter ,
http://www.sundaynews.co.zw/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=36785:improve-leather-industries--comesa&catid=41:business&Itemid=133#.Uqlu3yzxs5t
First it was a scramble for the highest-quality leather. Then it was all about securing adequate supplies of crocodile skin. Now, competition in the high-end luxury sector has turned to the ethical sourcing of snake skin.
Kering, the French luxury group formerly known as PPR, said it was creating the Python Conservation Partnership with the aim of “contributing to the improved sustainability of the python trade”.
The alliance, which brings the owner of Gucci together with non-governmental organizations and the International Trade Centre, a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the UN, involves a three-year research programme looking at sustainability and animal welfare in the python trade.
Luxury groups such as Kering are using increasing amounts of python skin as they seek to protect softening growth rates – in part by driving their products up market where they can command higher price tags.
A Gucci handbag made from python skin retails for at least €2,000 compared with the much cheaper canvas material. But Marie-Claire Daveu, Kering’s chief sustainability officer, says there is a problem of sourcing. “At the international level, we don’t have a methodology shared by all the actors in the python trade to assess the sustainability [of the business],” she told the FT.
One of the problems, she says, is the difficulty in knowing whether the python skins come from captivity or from the wild. Another was ensuring the livelihoods of the families, mainly from Southeast Asia, who work in the trade.
The three-year research programme will focus on five core areas, including monitoring wild capture to improve sustainable sourcing; developing technology to differentiate between captive-bred and wild animals; improving methods for captive breeding; and understanding the impact on families involved in the trade.
Kering said the data and findings of the study would contribute to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), an international treaty to protect endangered animals and plants.
The initiative follows a scramble by France’s leading luxury groups to secure adequate supplies of exotic and other quality leather to meet rising demand for top-dollar handbags.
Hermès, LVMH and Kering have rushed to buy crocodile farms and tanneries in recent years. In March, PPR, as Kering was then known, bought France Croco, a French tannery that sources and processes crocodile skins.
In the past year or so, meanwhile, Hermès has bought crocodile farms in Cairns, Australia and in Louisiana in the US. The luxury goods company, famous for its Birkin and Kelly bags, says it takes up to three crocodiles to make one bag.
But Ms Daveu of Kering said that the python project was only about the ethical and sustainable aspects of the python-skin trade. “It is a commitment on the sustainability side,” she said.
Source:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/796d5270-5391-11e3-9250-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2ljF2i3oU
The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia awarded different prizes that encompassed Certificates, silver plates, and trophies for its 152 customers who earned more than USD one million in 2013. Ninety three of the exporters earned more than USD one million while the rest made between USD 5 million to more than USD 100 million. Coffee, leather, oil seed and gold exporters were among the top performers. In the leather category, Mojdo Tannery and Hugian Shoe Factory were the ones awarded for their remarkable performance at a time when there was a stiff global competition.
The representative body of the leather industry in the European Union (EU), COTANCE, has launched a new initiative to promote the leather and tanning sector as an attractive career choice for young people and jobseekers.
At a meeting in Brussels on December 13, COTANCE announced the new project, called Leather is My Job. It will work jointly on the idea with trade union organisation industriAll; together they refer to themselves as the sectors “social partners”. The initiative has the support of the European Commission.
For many companies in Europe’s tanning sector it has become increasingly difficult to recruit qualified people, in spite of a high level of unemployment, COTANCE has said. The leather industry believes, however, that there is an increasing interest among young people in craftsmanship and design, manual work with authentic natural materials, and in more environmentally friendly industries. “The tanning industry offers all that; it recovers and recycles waste from the meat industry and transforms it into leather, one of the world’s most prestigious and highly sought after materials,” COTANCE said following the Brussels meeting.
Leather is My Job will aim to use this increase in interest to improve the tanning industry’s image in the eyes of jobseekers. It will involve representatives of the two social partners in seven EU member states: the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Romania and Bulgaria. Italy has opted not to take part, but will host an event to evaluate progress towards the end of the project. Participants will share information and experience in an effort to identify best practice and improve the way the European tanning sector presents itself as a source of jobs and as a good industry to work in.
Following the Brussels meeting, COTANCE told leatherbiz that it wanted to look separately at the way tanners recruit in eastern and western Europe. It said it wanted to assess whether there is an east-west divide in the sector’s labour market, or differences in employment and training policies.
COTANCE wants tanners in the seven member states to contribute directly by submitting material that shows them to be modern employers. Specifically, the organisation suggested that tanners send to Brussels testimonials from tannery workers, including photographs of them in the workplace to show the variety of jobs available in tanneries. COTANCE said it would be interested to hear from tannery workers about how they ended up in the industry and what they most like about their jobs.
Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, has said a government study into the leather industry will lead to restrictions on the amount of raw material and wet blue that will be available for export.
Local media have suggested that a maximum of 12,000 tonnes of raw hides and skins per month will be allowed to leave the country and a maximum of 27,000 tonnes of wet blue. The study put Colombia’s total output at 48,000 tonnes of leather and hides (estimated at 160,000 pieces) per month.
Colombia’s most prominent finished leather goods manufacturer, Mario Hernández, who has previously criticised the lack of local raw material available to manufacturers, welcomed the news. “We’ve been waiting for action of this kind for more than 20 years,” he said. “Now it’s time for everyone in the industry to stop complaining and work hard to compete by making high-quality products.”
Source: http://www.leatherbiz.com//fullitem2.aspx?id=131991
The end of 2013 brought a historical number to the Brazilian leather industry: US$ 2,508 billion. That is the total value of leather and skins exports throughout the year, an all time record. The value exceeds in 20,7% the accumulated number of the previous year, according to analysis from the Department of Intelligence of the Centre for the Brazilian Tanning Industries (CICB), and with preliminary data from the Department of Foreign Trade – Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC).
