Uganda bemoans dwindling demand for hides
21/01/2009
The Uganda Leather and Allied Industries Association (ULAIA) has said the African country can find "no market" for its hides and skins at the moment.
The organisation's general manager, Emmanuel Mwebe, has told local media that traders have been struggling to sell hides and skins for the last four months and that stocks are increasing all the time.
The principal problem is that there has been a sharp downturn in recent months in orders from tanneries in China, on whom hide suppliers in the African country have come to rely heavily.
“They could begin buying after the holiday [for Chinese New Year] but right now, they are in their festive season,” Mr Mwebe continued. “But it is also feared that, due to the ongoing global economic crisis, prices will go down, given that China exports leather products to the same countries that are hit by the crisis. The capacity to buy leather products such as furniture or cars with leather seats in those countries is bound to reduce.”
Hajj Abdu Karim Katende, who has been a skin and hides trader in the area around Masaka, in the south of Uganda, for the last 17 years, has said that business was very good until July last year.
Back then, the price of hides from the slaughterhouses was between $0.50 and $0.60 a kilo. His practice was to take these hides to wet blue stage, which allowed him to move them on for $0.85 or $0.90 a kilo. But he said the prices began to fall gradually and reached their lowest around the time of the festivals of Eid al-Adha and Christmas at the end of last year.
“Today, nobody is buying,” he told local media, "while the Lake Katwe and Lake Kasenyi salt, which we use to treat the hides and skins, has gone up in price." He said he now has hundreds of wet blue hides and skins "piled up" in his warehouse and does not know what to do with them.
Mr Mwebe has said Uganda should emulate countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Tunisia and develop its tanning industry to be able to add value to this resource before export.
Uganda has a favourable climate and fertile vegetation. The current sizes of its livestock herds are 8.1 million goats, 1.2 million sheep and 7.5 million head of cattle.
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