Mexican tanners want talks about water
07/03/2008
The newly elected president of Cicur—the chamber of commerce for the tanning sector in Mexico's main leather-producing region, León—has urged the city's water authorities to meet him for talks on water charges.
The city has clamped down on unofficial water suppliers in an attempt to force homes and businesses to connect to the main supply. Cicur president, Sergio Castro, has given a cautious welcome to the move, saying he believes tanners will benefit if the proposed price of $0.35 per cubic metre can come down.
He has written to the head of the León's water department to ask for talks, making it clear that he has a proposal of his own for pricing. He has claimed that the city's price would add 5% to the cost of wet blue and 3% to the price of finished leather.
He also made the point that major tanners in the area want to conduct scientific analyses of the water before confirming that they will be able to use it for leather production.
Mr Castro has also said that he will use his term of office to push León tanners towards diversification. He told local media: “We are going to look at new opportunities. Leather here has always gone into the local footwear industry. We're not going to abandon that traditional sector, but we would like to branch out into new areas such as automotive upholstery, leathergoods and apparel.”
One of the ways he will look to give the local leather industry a boost will be to use an 'inland port' facility that León has established to make it easier for local manufacturing companies to manage their export activities.
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