The leather sector people said they will start shifting tanneries in the capital’s Hazaribagh to Savar from the first quarter of next year.
They said it at a press conference yesterday, which was held to announce a seminar on the leather export sector.
The relocation will be made in several phases and will take time before all the tanneries are shifted, according to them.
Meanwhile, some European buyers had stopped buying leather products from Bangladesh due to lack of environmental compliance.
They are, however, expected to resume sourcing from Bangladesh after the central effluent treatment plant (CETP) for treating liquid waste is installed.
After introducing CETP, the old buyers along with new ones will get back to Bangladesh for leather products supply, said Shubhashish Bose, vice chairman of Export Promotion Bureau (EPB).
RMM Group chairman Mohiuddin Ahmed Mahin said they have adopted environment-friendly technologies in the production of ecological leather feathering hand weaving and hand painting that are ideal for fashion applications.
“Japan will be a lucrative market for exporting such products, which is 60% costlier to make than the normal ones,” Aniruddha Roy, the company’s managing director, told the Dhaka Tribune on the slidelines of the press conference.
Leather products export to Japan saw a rise around 40% last year. Japan is likely to remain an attractive export destination for the industry with the increase of product diversification.
Seminar on Leather Export
EPB and RRM Leather Industries Ltd will jointly organise a seminar on leather export at Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in Dhaka on Sunday.
It is aimed at laying out a plan to make the existing sector more lucrative to foreign buyers using cheap labour and meeting necessary compliance.
Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu will be present at the seminar as chief guest while Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, Environment and Forest Minister Anwar Hossain Manju, Sheikh Fazle Noor Tapos MP and FBCCI president Kazi Akram Uddin Ahmed, among others, will also attend the event.
They will contribute towards making the roadmap for development of the leather industry, said Shubhashish Bose.
“Such public-private initiatives must be taken for the greater good of leather industry which makes up 0.5% of global market,” Bose added.
The seminar will start at 10:30am at the hotel’s Ballroom and the interested participants would have to report by the beginning time.