Tanners finally paying rawhide merchants

Tanners have finally started paying arrears to rawhide merchants after several meetings brokered by the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI).

“They have started paying as per their previous commitment. However, I cannot say the exact amount that was paid by the tanners to the rawhide merchants so far,” said Delwar Hossain, president of the Bangladesh Hide and Skin Merchants’ Association.

The rawhide merchants want to sign a deal with tanners involving the FBCCI and the government to avoid any kind of crisis in rawhide trade in future, Hossain said, after emerging from the joint meeting of tanners, rawhide merchants, and government officials. The meeting was held at the FBBCI office in Dhaka with FBCCI Vice-president Rezaul Karim Reznu in chair.

“We want to sign the deal with tanners within the next 29 days,” Hossain said. 

If there is a deed on rawhide trade, everybody will have to follow the rules.

“So, there will not be a repeat of the situation we experienced during this Eid-ul-Azha,” Hossain said.

The tanners have been owing rawhide merchants Tk 350 crore since 1990. They were supposed to pay 50 percent of the dues incurred between 2015 and 2019.

“I do not know whether the tanners paid this amount to the rawhide merchants. But they started paying the arrears to the merchants,” he added.

According to the decision of the previous meeting of the FBCCI, the tanners are supposed to clear their arrears to rawhide traders in three phases: from 1990 to 2010, 2010 and 2015, and 2015 to 2019.

Earlier in an emergency meeting at the commerce ministry, Industries Minister Nurul Majid Mahmud Humayun tasked the FBCCI with mediating the dispute of non-payment of more than Tk 400 crore to rawhide merchants.

They tasked the FBCCI to resolve the non-payment issue when reports were surfacing in the media that nearly 35 percent of more than 1 crore units of rawhides were being thrown away by the seasonal small traders and farmers in the absence of buyers.

A huge number of rawhides worth nearly Tk 100 crore were thrown away as the merchants did not have the capital to purchase them from seasonal small traders because the tanners did not clear the previous dues.

After yesterday’s meeting, Hossain also said many rawhide merchants have died or are not in the business anymore.

In such cases, the tanners might not need to pay the amount, he said.