All articles by Amit Thadani
Amit Thadani
Huge Potential in Nigerian Leather Industry
Nigeria’s vice president, Yemi Osinbajo says that Nigeria’s leather industry has the potential to generate over 1 billion USD by 2025. Osinbajo disclosed this at the formal inauguration and sensitisation workshop on the National Leather and Leather Products Policy Implementation Plan on Tuesday in Abuja. The vice president said the leather value chain had created wealth and appreciable job opportunities in Nigeria.
View from the US
After dramatic price increases in March, the US hide market moderated and was relatively stable through the remainder of the spring, aside from some typical ups and downs. By the start of June, the most interesting aspect of the steer market was the shifting focus of demand from selections for automotive uses towards branded material favoured by footwear tanners.
Natural solution
In this edited extract, Eser Eke Bayramoglu, Anıl Özçelik, Mehmet Çetin and Erkan Eren of the Department of Leather Engineering at Ege University in Turkey investigate the use of oyster mushrooms as a way to reduce the amount of chromium in leather waste.
China Blocks H&M
In March, Beijing all but erased H&M’s internet presence in the country after the company and BCI raised concerns about allegations of slave labor in the cotton-rich Chinese region of Xinjiang. Following the online blocking of H&M and Chinese social-media users calling for boycotts of members Nike and Adidas AG, BCI deleted from its website a months-old statement about concerns that cotton was being produced by slave labor in Xinjiang.
Tanzania Waives Leather Processing Machines’ Import
The government of Tanzania announced this weekend that it had waived import duty for leather processing machines, in a bid to attract more investments in the leather industry. Kitila Mkumbo, the Minister for Industry and Trade, told the country’s parliament, in the capital Dodoma, that the government has also waived import duty for materials used in processing leather.
Footwear from Mexico launches a sales platform
The Chamber of the Footwear Industry of Guanajuato (CICEG), Mexico, presented the digital platform called “Guanajuato Offer”, which aims to speed up contact with its local buyers. Entrepreneurs seek to reduce their stocks due to the drop in sales due to the pandemic and push the reactivation of their domestic market.
Brazil continues to recover its footwear exports
Footwear exports from Brazil managed to round in the first four months a rise of 10.1% in volume but a decrease of 4.6% in revenue (due to the depreciation of the local currency), compared to the same period of 2020 In that period, Brazil exported 40.5 million pairs worth US $ 258.8 million.
ILSA Brasil has already converted tannery waste into 300000 tons of fertilizers
The ILSA Brasil company assures that in May it will reach the production of 300,000 tons of leather waste transformed into fertilizers, from the beginning of its operations in that country in 2009. The technology it uses allows to transform this waste into a new product of great importance for the environment, food and society.
APLF and ACLE launch their version of hybrid fairs with a new platforms
The APLF, the great meeting point of the leather industry and its manufactures, issued a statement in which it informs that to face the effects of the prolonged global pandemic it has generated “a digital platform of excellence to allow the holding of hybrid fairs” . In this way it seeks to “collaborate to maintain the level of its business contacts as much as possible, especially those professionals who cannot or do not wish to travel to Hong Kong or Shanghai.”
The SAPICA fair, physical and virtual, managed to improve its results despite the complex situation in Mexico
SAPICA, the shoe and leather goods fair, was held in presence from March 7 to 11 at the Poliforum in the city of León, Mexico. The organizers reported that the deals concluded exceeded the expected expectations of the exhibiting companies.