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Rawhide supply better, prices low

Sector leader brushes aside manipulation allegations

KawsarKhan
Rawhide supply during Eid-ul-Azha this year has been described as satisfactory by sector people, but its low rate has annoyed the merchants who lambaste big buyers for the manipulation in price.
Tk 30 is the price for per square feet cowhide in Dhaka and Tk 25 outside the capital, while goatskin is between Tk 18 and Tk 25, as fixed by tannery owners and leather exporters this time, which the traders see as below the real price.
Mohammad Delwar Hossain, general secretary of Bangladesh Hide and Skin Merchants Association, alleged: “The tannery owners themselves collected hide at prices higher than the rates fixed by them earlier."
The rawhide merchants were in a daze to buy hide in higher rate though finally they were forced to collect cowhide at Tk 45 in the capital, Hosain pointed out
"Cowhide prices Increased at around 1pm on the Eid day after tannery owners had begun buying hides at higher rates," said Mohammad Arif, a merchant, from his warehouse at Posta in I.albagh.
Big hide traders force small ones to buy the item at low price in order to make room for them to get it later at a much more lower rate, Arif expressed his dismay.
A piece of large cowhide was traded between Tk 1,000 and Tk 1,200 while goat hide prices ranged from Tk 100 to Tk 120 at Posta, which are much higher than the prices fixed by Bangladesh Finished Leather, Leather Goods, and Footwear Exporters Association and Bangladesh Tanners Association.
Around 2.8 million cows and bulls were sacrificed this Eid across the country, while the number of sacri-ficed goat was around 8 million and buffalo 65,000, according to the sector people.
"We assume that the number of sacrificed cow is 2-3 lakh higher this year compared to the figure a year earlier, " said said Rezaul Karim Ansari, chairman of Bangladesh Finished Leather, Leather Goods and Footwear Exporters Association.
When his attention was drawn to the allegation of rawhide merchants, Ansari turned it down.
He said the price-drop because of low demand for leather and leather products in the international market has led to such fall in hide prices locally.
Around 10 percent of hide has already been collected from across the country, hesaid.
"We'll buy the rest amount from different seasonal and professional merchants in the next two months,” Ansari added.
The tanners countrywide process over 220 million square feet of leather every year, of which over 40 percent is collected during Eid-ul-Azha.
Ansari came down heavily on rawhide traders saying that their contribution to the entire gamut of leather processing is very limited although they take around Tk 40 as commission against trading each piece of hide resulting in the hike in prices.
The sectoral trade body chief also pointed his finger at the falling demand for leather goods in global market.
Leather exports plummeted 24.55 percent in the July-September quarter of the current fiscal year, earning $45.46 million, while footwear exports fetched $56.22 million, with a 2.95 percent fall.
kawsar@thedailystar.net