COTANCE shares figures for global leather sector
Leather manufacturers across the world are currently producing between 23 billion and 24 billion square-feet of leather per year.
This was the figure the industry’s representative body in the European Union, COTANCE, gave at Lineapelle on February 21 at a workshop on a new project called Leatech. This project will consist of the development and delivery of a new master’s degree programme in innovative and sustainable leather technology for post-graduate students from around the world.
At the start of the workshop, COTANCE secretary general, Gustavo González-Quijano, said he wanted to outline some of the dimensions of “the leather ecosystem”. He said the figure for the combined total square-footage of tanners’ output had come from the International Council of Tanners.
He went on to say that the estimated economic value of this output from leather manufacturers is around $50 billion per year. The material, of course, goes on to add enormous levels of added value when it goes into finished product.
Mr González-Quijano went on to say that 60% of all the leather in the world is now produced in developing countries, with 40% coming from the more developed economies.
He explained that this was a reversal of the situation in leather production at the start of the century.
Across the world, the industry as a whole directly employs an estimated 500,000 people.
Full details of the Leatech project will be in the February-March issue of World Leather.
