Brazil to import more skins from Middle East and African countries
14/09/2007
The Brazilian leather sector is set to increase the number of sheepskins and goatskins it uses.
The import duty on both was recently lowered to zero from the Mercosur Common External Tariff list. This will enable specialist tanneries in northern and northeastern Brazil to import the necessary volume of the skins to bring their operations up to full production capacity; at the moment, they are idle approximately 40% of the time.
Most of the leather produced from the skins would go into the footwear industry.
The world's main exporters of sheepskins and goatskins are some of the African and Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Algeria. Brazil imported goatkins, sheepskins and bovine leather worth US$ 1.34 million from these three countries from January to July of the current year.
"Imports of skins will certainly grow," Luiz Bittencourt, managing director of the Centre for the Brazilian Tanning Industry (CICB), has said. "In the past, Brazil also imported skins from the United Arab Emirates and Somalia. This could happen again now that the duty has been zeroed."
