Bangladesh Leather Industry Is Afraid Of Completing Its Annual Export Target

Media reports said that due to the continued weakness of the euro and other major currencies against the US dollar, the export of leather has been in a predicament in the current fiscal year.

The leather industry of Bangladesh entered the "export club" of leather products in the past fiscal year.

Exports of other leather products totaled $1 billion 124 million, of which leather exports amounted to US $505 million.

The export is 378 million dollars.

In view of the good export performance of leather industry in the last fiscal year, the government set a target of export of US $1 billion 400 million in the current fiscal year.

But data from the Bangladesh Export Bureau showed that the overall export of the leather industry declined by 1.14% in the first 9 months of the fiscal year (May 2014 -2015 March).

Leather shoes exports increased by 20%-25%, but leather and leather goods exports fell by 20.26% to $304 million.

According to industry estimates, because of the poor performance of leather raw materials exports, the export target of $1 billion 400 million is hard to achieve.

The Bangladesh Tanner Association says the country's total export of leather is about 200 million square feet a year, in sum, 500 million dollars.

Md Shaheen Ahmed, chairman of the Bangladesh Tanner Association, said: "the decline in leather exports is mainly due to the decline in the euro, yen and RMB exchange rate against the US dollar."

He said the decline in the euro has affected Bangladesh's overall exports.

Md Delowar Hossain, former Secretary General of the Bangladesh fur traders Association, is a leather exporter. He said the export price of high quality split leather is between $2.7 and $2.8 per square foot, compared with $3.1 last year.

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According to the Portuguese leather goods and Footwear Association Association, the coastal countries with leather manufacturing experience increased their footwear export growth by 213% from 2006 to 2013.

The British fashion business Farfetch, which recently won the E round of financing, was founded by Portuguese entrepreneur Jos Neves in 2008.

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Imported raw materials from Italy, France and the United Kingdom are assembled locally, usually in 3 days.

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The export of the whole fashion industry reached 4 million 283 thousand euros (about 28 million 679 thousand yuan), accounting for 9% of the country's total export.

However, no country can be satisfied with OEM.

At the end of March this year, Portugal's twentieth fashion week opened in its capital city Lisbon and Oporto, the port city.

Although neither of these two cities is a fashion capital, the fashion week is a real reflection of the flourishing trend of the local fashion industry.

Alves e Gon Gon, founded by Manuel Alves and Manuel Gon Gon Alves twin partner, is considered a Portuguese national dress brand and has a history of over 30 years.

Alves is also responsible for designing the flight attendant uniform for Portuguese air TAP, and says that all the raw materials of the fashion are from home.

In his view, the key to the success of the design brand is to find a customer base.