India: leather exports up, but fall short of $4 billion target
14/10/2009
The value of India's exports of leather and leathergoods for the 2008-09 financial year rose by 1.41% to almost $3.6 billion.
This performance missed the industry's target of $4 billion by around 10%.
According to Habib Hussain, chairman of industry body the Council for Leather Exports (CLE) the figures are in keeping with his organisation's expectations, considering the global economic slowdown.
The CLE has predicted that India's leather sector exports will surpass a value of $7 billion in the 2013-14 fiscal year.
The value of leather footwear exports increased by 5.9% to $1.2 billion, while the figure for garments rose by 23.4% to $426.1 million. For leathergoods, the increase in export value was 9.1% resulting in a figure of $873.3 million.
Ten countries combined to provide the Indian leather industry with about 75% of export revenues. Germany came top with a 14.1% share of the total, followed by Italy with 12.8%, the UK with 11.48%, the US with 9.9%, Hong Kong with 6.6%, Spain 6.1%, France 6.1%, Netherlands 4.1%, UAE 2.4% and Australia 1.5%.
The CLE has conducted a series of roadshows and buyer-seller meetings in countries like Japan, Spain, Italy, the US, Australia, New Zealand, and some African countries. It has also had a presence at all the leading international industry fairs.
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