Rawhide market on road to recovery
Bangladesh's rawhide market appears to have made a comeback this Eid-ul-Azha on the back of higher demand, better prices and a bar on rawhides arriving in Dhaka.
The government has fixed the price of salted cowhide at Tk 47-52 per square foot in Dhaka and Tk 40-44 in other parts of the country, up from Tk 40-45 and Tk 33-37 last year.
The price of male goat hide has been set at Tk 18-20 per sft from Tk 15-17 in 2021.
Furthermore, the government has put a bar on the arrival of rawhides in Dhaka in the week after Eid to prevent over-supply in the capital's market.
Zahurul Islam, owner of Sirajganj Traders in Savar Harindhara Bazar, one of the trading hubs for rawhides, has targeted to buy 5,000 pieces of rawhide and as of yesterday, was able to purchase about 1,000 pieces of skins.
A total of 99,50,763 animals were sacrificed this Eid, according to the fisheries and livestock ministry, up 9.4 percent year-on-year.
The price was slightly higher since the supply was low, according to Islam.
So much that there were no incidents of rawhide being -- which was a common occurrence in the past three years -- according to Tapan Kanti Ghosh, senior secretary to the commerce ministry.
On the day of Eid, which was Sunday, a piece of medium-sized cowhide sold for Tk 600 to Tk 750 and a large-sized cowhide at Tk 800-1,150 in Dhaka's Posta, the largest hub in Bangladesh.
This was in line with the government-fixed price, said Aftab Khan, president of the Bangladesh Hide and Skin Merchants Association, adding that the business was better than last year.
Seasonal traders, madrasas and orphanages, which collected animals' skins across the country, have all been able to sell rawhide at good prices.
"Hopefully, tanners will buy the salted hides at the same rate fixed by the government. If not, the traders will incur losses," Khan said.
Md Shakawat Ullah, general secretary of the Bangladesh Tanners Association (BTA), assured that tanners would buy rawhides at the price fixed by the government.
Tanners collected 360,000 pieces of rawhides as of yesterday and would start buying salted hides after a week.
"Hopefully the business will be better this year than last year," he added.
Tanners received Tk 170 crore from four state-run banks to clear dues that paved the way for fresh purchases, said Shahin Ahmed, president of the BTA.
Eid-ul-Azha accounts for nearly half of the rawhide needed by Bangladesh's $1.24-billion export-earning leather and leather goods industry.
MIXED SCENARIO OUTSIDE OF DHAKA
In Narayanganj, traders did not buy rawhides at higher prices due to the increased price of salts and higher cost of processing the skins and transportation and labour costs. They bought cowhides at Tk 300-550, depending on the size.
Chattogram-based traders bought skins at Tk 400-700, up about 20 percent from last year.
Traders in the port city have set a target to procure about 3.5 lakh pieces of rawhides, down 15 percent year-on-year. They collected 1.5 lakh pieces of rawhides.
Seasonal traders have 2 lakh pieces under their disposal and the skins would start to come to markets within a few days, according to Moslem Uddin, president of the Chattogram Rawhide Warehouse Traders.
"The price of rawhides at the grass-root level is a bit lower. As a result, seasonal traders will get better prices when they sell the salted hides to wholesalers and merchants," said Ghosh.
The tannery owners in Dhaka have cleared dues, according to Shahidul Islam, general secretary of the Natore Leather Traders' Association.
Our correspondents from Chattogram, Natore and Narayanganj contributed to this report
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