Bangladesh Hides and Skin Merchant Association has announced to keep the rawhide sales suspended until its meeting with the Commerce Ministry scheduled to be held at 3pm on Sunday.
Delwar Hossain, president of the association, made the announcement at a press briefing after a meeting at its Lalbagh office on Saturday.
"We apologize for this situation as such this [fall in prices] never happened in Bangladesh," he said.
About the government's decision to lift ban on rawhide export, he said, there was yet to get any directive from the ministry.
Delwar said: "We will abide by all the government's decisions."
He, however, said they were not prepared for rawhide export as they had no license to this end.
He further said the current situation was created because of the non-payment of arrears by tannery owners.
"We could not spray salt on rawhide because of the cash crunch. As a result, rawhide rotted away. If tannery owners would have paid the arrears, the situation would had improved," he concluded.