Mega-clusters will lead to “quantum leap” in Indian tanning
01/02/2012
Since an initial announcement at the start of 2011, the Council for Leather Exports (CLE) says now that its members have already identified two sites they want to use, one near Delhi and the other 30 kilometres from Chennai. Earlier reports suggest the city of Jodhpur in Rajasthan may also be able to secure one of the centres, in which tanneries will be co-located with supply companies, leathergoods manufacturers and a state-of-the-art effluent treatment plant together on the same site. CLE says it has reached an agreement with the government to set up as many as seven of these sites around the country.
CLE president, Rafeeque Ahmed, said at a press conference at the 2012 India International Leather Fair that it was up to companies in the leather industry to identify and purchase the sites for the leather cluster projects and that government support would come in the shape of infrastructure improvements, including better roads, access to water and energy and communications technology. He said he was optimistic that the mega-clusters would be up and running within five years.
Mr Ahmed said India’s leather-sector exporting companies expect to end the current financial year (on March 31) with growth of between 15% and 18% in terms of value compared to the previous financial year. “This growth is good,” he said. “Quality and value-add have increased and Indian exports are now concentrated on the medium-to-high end of the market, rather than the mass market. An advantage is that India has its own tanning industry and in the last five or ten years, the technological advances have been rapid. But we want to expand our capacity and the mega-clusters will help us do that. The government has sanctioned up to seven of them and when we have them our production capacity will experience a quantum leap.”
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