It is being alleged that the government announcement to allow rawhide export fell into deaf ear as an organised syndicate in a planned way is still plotting to destroy the country’s tannery sector.
Despite the government decision, the price remained unchanged for the last two days.
A syndicate of leather sector businesses allegedly foiled the government initiative to ensure fair prices for seasonal rawhide traders as seasonal traders working downstream had no facility to preserve the items for export. They either left the unsold rawhide on streets, buried the rawhides under the ground or dumped it in to rivers following a steep price fall.
This year, Eid-ul-Adha witnessed an unprecedented price disorder in the procurement of rawhides of the sacrificial animals in the history of the country allegedly due to the backhanding of a syndicate.
Seasonal rawhide traders and tanners blamed the syndicate as price of cattle rawhide began to drop on the evening of Eid Day, on Monday.
Mentionable, half the cattle slaughtered in Bangladesh throughout the year are sacrificed during Eid. Muslims have slaughtered around 125 million cattle this Eid, according to a government estimate.
Earlier on Tuesday, the government has decided to give permission to export rawhides in face of drastic price fall during the Eid-ul-Adha.
Meanwhile, leaders of Bangladesh Tanners Association (BTA) have urged the government to withdraw its decision to allow rawhide exports, on the grounds that it might cause a scarcity of raw materials for the local industry.
Commerce minister Tipu Munshi has blamed the rawhide traders for abnormal fall of price.
As tannery owners and hide merchants traded blames over the drastic fall in prices of the rawhide of sacrificial animals, seasonal traders as well as institutions seeking to earn some extra money on the occasion went berserk over not being able to sell their goods at a minimum price.
The unprecedented low price made tens of thousands people across the country suffer while many even took the drastic decision to bury the items after they failed to get minimum prices for them.
Bangladesh Hide and Skin Merchants Association leaders said that the prices of rawhides plummeted across the country due to cash crisis of traders as their payment for last year’s hides and skins worth Tk 300 crore remained due in several tanneries.
Besides, thousands of raw hides stored with insufficient salts, have already started rotting in many areas.
On the fourth day of Eid-ul-Adha, many seasonal traders are still hoping for good price.
Several retail traders said if the government announcement was declared earlier, the situation would not have deteriorated to such an extent.
They, however, demanded faster process to export rawhide.
Visiting the capital's rawhide trading areas, it has been witnessed that traders are trying to preserve their collected rawhide with preserving ingredients.
the selling price of cowhide switched on an average between Tk 150 and Tk 250 a piece while the average price of goatskin varied between Tk 10 and Tk 30 a piece this year.
A good number of seasonal and small-scale traders incurred a huge loss as they even failed to get the prices they had paid for procuring the hides.
Frustrated over the price disorder, seasonal and small-scale traders in different parts of the country set fire on rawhide and threw away the items on the street protesting at the prices offered by traders who refused to buy the products despite offering a minimum price.
Since 2013, the government has favoured a drastic lowering of the prices of rawhide of sacrificial animas to protect the coteries of the leather sector depriving the people who supply the items and for whom the annual sale during Eid-ul-Azha had always been crucial, said some anonymous traders.
This year, the leather sector businessmen also demanded that the prices of rawhide of the sacrificial animals be lowered by 40 per cent from that of last year on the excuse of ‘slow demand’ in the world market.
Although this year’s prices of hide and skin were not lowered, they were the same as last year’s which were seven-year low.
After setting the price, commerce secretary Md Mofizul Islam said that the price of rawhide in Bangladesh was lowest in the world.
The government had set the prices of cowhide at Tk 45-50 a square foot in Dhaka and Tk 35-40 a square foot for outside Dhaka while the prices of castrated-goat skin had been set at Tk 18-20 a square foot and that of goatskin at Tk 13-15 a square foot across the country.
Despite setting the lowest prices in the world, Bangladeshi hide traders expressed their unwillingness to buy the skins of sacrificial animals due to the negative message that came from the tanners as the government disagreed with their (tanners) proposal for lowering the prices by 40 per cent, traders said claiming anonymity.
Media reported that seasonal and small-scale traders threw away more than one lakh pieces of cowhides on the road of Chattogram city as wholesale traders refused to buy the items even at Tk 50-10 per piece.
However, following an advice of commerce ministry, Bangladesh Tanners’ Association (BTA) will start collecting rawhide from August 17. The association, however, urged the government to withdraw the decision of exporting rawhide form the country.
