Tanners in Argentina complain as hide exports continue
Argentina’s government has continued to allow the export of hides in 2021 at the request of the country’s meat companies. However, organisations representing the tanning industry have said exports of raw material should stop right away or 30,000 jobs in the leather manufacturing value chain could be at risk.
In 2020, covid-19 led the government to order the closure of most factories, including tanneries and finished leather product facilities. However, meat-packing plants continued to operate and stocks of wet-salted hides began to build up.
Until 2020, exports of unprocessed Argentinean hides were very limited, but to relieve the bottle-neck that was building up during lockdown, the government bowed to pressure from meat packers and permitted a larger volume of exports than usual.
At first, the government said it would make this special provision for 60 days. It later extended permission to export wet-salted hides until the end of 2020. At the start of 2021, meat industry organisations requested a further extension, which the government granted.
According to industry publication Cuero América, Argentina exported 4.2 million hides in 2020, around 35% of the total volume resulting from cattle slaughter there last year.
At the start of 2021, leather manufacturing activity resumed in Argentina and tanneries have said they experienced shortages in hide supply right away. They also said the price of the hides available has risen substantially, making it difficult for them to produce enough finished leather at prices their customers can accept.
At the end of March, an organisation representing tannery workers, FATICA, issued a statement calling on the government to bring exports of wet-salted hides to a halt to ease the pressure on the supply and the price of raw material reaching them.
FATICA said the situation had become “extremely serious” and it said immediate action was required to protect 30,000 jobs in the country’s leather manufacturing sector.
