Tanzania: poor raw material supply puts tanneries under threat
07/02/2012
A newspaper, The Citizen, visited the country’s three biggest tanneries at the start of September. It said the three tanneries, Morogoro, Moshi and Himo, can employ a combined workforce of 1,200 people when working at full capacity, but that the paucity of hides and skins at the moment means only 140 people in total are working across the three sites at the moment.
The report said collection of hides and skins across Tanzania was, on average, only 50% of slaughter, making available to the tanners 2.4 million cattle hides, 900,000 goat skins and 400,000 sheepskins a year.
Tannery managers that the newspaper spoke to said hundreds of thousands of raw hides and skins are leaving Tanzania every year and that tanneries in China, Italy, Mexico and Spain are among the recipients. In addition, they said that traders from Pakistan were active in Tanzania, buying up raw material at prices local tanners could not afford to pay.
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