India: leather exports up 5% in Q1
Indian leather exports have seen a rise of 5% during the first quarter of the current financial year, according to the Council for Leather Exports (CLE).
For the period of April to June 2011, export of leather and leather products were up 5.1% at $811 million as against $772 million in the corresponding period of previous fiscal year.
“Though there is still a good demand in Europe for our leather products, the increase in raw material costs are hitting the margins of exporters as there is no matching increase in prices of the products. However, we will still achieve some growth,” said M Rafeeque Ahmed, chairman of the CLE.
“Though the Euro currency situation is presently in our favour, we have to wait and see. However, the instability in Euro Zone is a worrying factor,” he added. Segments such as leather garments and goods have reported strong growth during the first quarter. Leather footwear posted single digit growth while finished leather, footwear components and non-leather footwear registered fall.
Footwear exports grew by 5.2% at $316 million during April to June 2011 when compared with $300 million in the same period a year ago.
However, the key highlight is a revival of strong growth in the leather garments segment, which grew by 18% at $79 million as against $67 million in the previous year.
The government has fixed a target of $8.5 billion for the Indian leather sector to be achieved by 2013-14. The industry has to achieve an annual growth of about 26% (as against the present level of about 10.5%) in order to achieve this target. During 2010-11, industry achieved 13% growth in total leather exports at $3.84 billion.
