Brazil’s leather industry counts the cost of duty evasion

14/05/2001

Since the introduction of the 9% duty on wet blue exports to non-Mercosur countries at the end of last year, stories have abounded in the Brazilian press on how the duty is being flouted.

Though nobody has yet been prosecuted, two types of fraud are suspected, with wet blue being passed off as crust, or being exported via the Mercorsur states Uruguay and Paraguay.