Bangladesh: tanners must move before March
26/01/2010
The Bangladesh Tanners Association (BTA) has warned that the industry there could be “destroyed” unless the authorities provide businesses with more help to complete a move to a new site.
Tanners have been told they have to move their businesses from their traditional home in the Hazaribagh district of the capital, Dhaka, to a new industrial estate in the nearby district of Savar. The move was first proposed in 2003, but political problems in the country in the middle part of the decade put the plans on hold.
One area of contention has been the funding of the common effluent treatment plant at Savar, with the tanners and the government each insisting the other must pay for the work to be completed. Last year the government said each company taking up a plot on the new site would pay a contribution to work, but would be able to pay in installments.
Work on the common effluent treatment plant is ongoing, but the government has now said the Hazaribagh tanneries will be obliged to close down by February 28.
At a meeting with the BTA and other leather sector businesses on January 26, industries minister, Dilip Barua, said the date was non-negotiable owing to concerns over environmental damage to the Buriganga river that the existing facilities may be contributing to.
BTA general secretary, Abdul Bye, said that if tanners do not receive help to complete the move “the sector will be destroyed”. Local media said Rezaul Karim Ansari, president of Bangladesh Finished Leather Goods Association, had estimated that leather sector companies need $700 million to complete the move to Savar.
The industry leaders asked the minister for help in convincing banks to support the move and he promised to provide this help. Local media also quoted the government’s law minister, Quamrul Islam, as saying: “The tanneries must go to the new site, but the common effluent treatment plant must be installed. It is unfair that it is not yet set up.”
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