The ongoing US-China trade war provides huge opportunities to leather exporters to increase their shipments to America, CLE said on Thursday. Council for Leather Exports (CLE) Chairman P R Aqeel Ahmed said the sector’s exports grew about seven per cent to the US in the past four months.”The trade war gives huge opportunities to the sector to further explore the US market,” he said here at the National Export Excellence Awards here.
He said leather exports have recorded dip in growth in value terms but in volume terms, it is increasing. “This is the sector which provides the highest employment to women and we are taking several steps to promote exports,” he said. According to him, this labour-intensive sector has huge potential to earn foreign exchange for the country and create jobs for the youth.
The commerce minister has already announced a Rs 2,600-crore package for the leather sector to boost exports, Ahmed said. “Despite the global economic slowdown, production and employment in the leather sector have increased. Also, this is the only industry where in the exports of value-added products (USD 5.69 billion) are almost five times more than the import of inputs/components/accessories and capital goods which is to the tune of USD 1 billion,” he said.
He added that the industry is undertaking a multi-pronged approach including product and market diversification, attracting investments, increasing capacities and also developing skills of workers so as to increase its global market share in the coming years. Currently, Europe accounts for about 70 per cent of leather exports from India. The sector employs about 44 lakh people.
The Council for Leather Exports presents the Export Excellence Awards to its member exporters every year. These awards are presented for various product categories such as finished leather, leather goods, leather garments, footwear, saddlery and harness items, and footwear components.
Source: financialexpress.com