Chennai: hides confusion continues
22/05/2008
Confusion reigns at the port of Chennai in southern India over imported hides and skins.
As reported on leatherbiz.com at the start of April, the All India Skin and Hide Tanners and Merchants Association (AISHTMA) has complained about moves by customs authorities at the city's port to quarantine imported hides and skins.
The president of AISHTMA, Rafeeque Ahmed, argued at the time that there was no need to quarantine wet blue and crust hides because the chemical treatment they have undergone removes any health risk.
Over the last two weeks, however, more than 80 containers of imported raw hides and semi-processed skins have built up at the port, because the authorities have insisted on making sanitary certificates mandatory for imports.
Mr Ahmed recently told reporters that the raw materials have been routinely imported over several decades by the leather industry and that, following discussions in April, the state government of Tamil Nadu had agreed not to impose the new certification requirements. But he said no action had been taken to unblock the bottleneck and that the material was stuck at the port.
The annual imports of skin and hide through the port of Chennai are estimated to have a value of $250 million.
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