Bangladesh is an agricultural country. It has an agrarian economy and has agro-based growth potentials in the country. There is a great potential in different sectors like pharmaceuticals, ready-made garments, processed foods, cement, steel and leather etc. Leather sector has a great potential in our economy. It is a promising and thrust sector for our future economy. Present government is giving more priorities and attention in this sector because of availability of its indigenous raw materials easily and cheaply. Every year in different occasions and festivals like religious ceremony (Eid-ul-Azha), marriage ceremony and other party’s occasions, we slaughter many cattle like cows, goats, buffalos, sheep etc. From there, we get rawhides, leather, leather related inputs for finished products like shoes, bags, belts, jackets, purses, luggage, musical instruments, gift items and other household products.  Bangladeshi leather and leather goods have immense demands from different countries in the world. Bangladesh earns a large share of foreign exchange from this sector. We should tap all kinds of opportunities from the leather sector. Multinational company BATA and some indigenous industries namely Apex Footwear and Orion Footwear are doing well in this arena. Many other leather industries and leather related firms are doing good business. We should take proper, pragmatic steps and long term policies to save and boost this sector which has a great potentiality to generate income and revenues. It is now potential and growth sector in our country. A densely populated country like ours where unemployment rate is so high can be engaged in this sector for reducing unemployment. Every year, thousands of labour force is coming in quest of employment after passing SSC, HSC and with degrees from higher educational institutions. But they are not getting job for the reason of mismatch with their education and job. So, we will have to prepare ourselves to educate our young people by practical and vocational training and employ them accordingly.

 What is necessary now is to invest in human resources development by education, practical and vocational training. Sector wise job education can help any organisation to get skilled manpower easily to realize the full potentials of its projects. And that is why, division of labour and division of responsibility now is the specific and crying need of the hour. There should be more research, more practical and vocational education in the leather sector which will directly or indirectly help for development of our leather industry. Utilisation and improvement in product quality (from collecting rawhide to finished leather products) sophistication and standards are very important for export of leather products and to match with the demands of buyers, both domestic and foreigners. It is important also to expand export basket of the leather products. Infrastructure facilities should be increased in education and research of this firm for effective operation of tannery estates.

It is urgent need to re-allocate these tannery estates to Savar areas for environmental consideration. If we can provide more skilled manpower in this sector, we shall be able to exploit more the facilities given here and able to earn more foreign exchange.  

 A career in leather technology is a lucrative option in Bangladesh. There are three areas of work in this industry: designing, manufacturing and marketing. There are ample job opportunities in the leather industry. After acquiring the required qualification and some hands on training, one can work as technical designer, style designer and quality control checker. They can also get employed in export houses, government organisations, leather firms, leather products industries, lecturers in universities/institutes. They can also get overseas jobs which are plenty. And for this purpose, I propose to set up more leather engineering institutes in the country. At least a leather university at every divisional headquarters and minimum a leather engineering institute in every district can be set up for more skilled manpower in this sector.

It will help to attain many objectives and purposes as creating more employment in the country, more skilled manpower in this sector, self-employment, to create self-managed leather firm/industries in the remote areas, reduce unemployment, expanding leather goods exports, will increase national income and foreign exchange.

Employment opportunities will be created in rural areas and will help to reduce rural-urban migration. It will help to collect, process, protect primary rawhides easily, scientifically and locally. More leather related small, medium and large industries will grow in remote areas. Cost of doing business in this sector will lessen and revenue will be maximised. Bangladesh will be able to export the best and scientifically managed leather products to foreign countries. More competitiveness prevails in this sector in the world including neighbouring India, China, Pakistan and Thailand. During our Eid festival (Eid-ul-Azha), we have seen in some media news about the prices of rawhides and the speculations of people about the potentials of this sector. Seasonal traders across the country have thrown away thousands of pieces of rawhides of sacrificial animals failing to sell those for lack of demand. Some are putting these rawhides in the mud for not getting the fair price etc. Some are saying that the traders and rawhide merchants put the price least and they made an artificial crisis. Many small traders all over the country dumped rawhide beside roads as they could not find any buyer. It is quite unacceptable. We shall have to take care of this situation before our festival (Eid-ul-Azha). All stakeholders connected with this sector will have to take a long term policy and planning with short time so that all the parties (buyers and sellers) can be benefitted from this business.

Leather sector is our thrust and potential sector of the economy. We should support this sector providing educational skills, government’s subsidies, tax incentives, tax breaks and other probable cooperation as far as possible.

Our government can negotiate with importing countries, put policies to attract FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) by economic diplomacy and taking other monetary and fiscal measures to save this sector.

The writer who writes on development and economic issues can be reached at: E-mail: [email protected]