A push comes for quality enhancement of leather and leather goods and pursuing aggressive marketing to raise their exports to China, where a vast market potential lies untapped.
Officials say the suggestion comes for Bangladeshi exporters of leather and leather goods as the government is looking for ways and means to enhance export to China by removing barriers and providing requisite supports.
The ministry of commerce recently sought suggestion from the Bangladesh embassy in Beijing as to how to raise exports of leather and leather goods to China-billed world's second-largest economy with an over 1.4-billion-strong population.
Commercial counsellor at the mission Mohammad Monsur Uddin informed the ministry that during the last 10 years Bangladesh, on average, exported leather worth US$50 million and footwear worth $16.70 million to China.
The highest volume of leather export to China this decade was worth $76.36 million in fiscal year 2016-17, leather goods worth $145 million in fiscal year 2015-16, and footwear export worth 33.50 million in the same year.
He writes that China mainly imports leather from the USA, Brazil, Italy, Australia, Thailand and Korea as the size of leather from there is comparatively bigger and they are collected by using machines.
On the other hand, leather collected in Bangladesh is comparatively smaller and separated from animal body manually.
"The Chinese buyers are interested to import high-quality leather at competitive price from the USA, Brazil, Italy and Australia instead of high-priced leather from Bangladesh," he said.
He also feels that to export leather to China and other global markets, Bangladesh need to set up slaughtering machines in urban and rural areas and separate leather by using machines.
Mr Uddin further says the quality requirements of Chinese importers are much higher than the prices they offer, thus many Bangladeshi exporters show less interest in exporting leather and leather goods to China.
The demand for world-standard brand products is rising in China but there is not outlet of Bangladeshi brands over there.
The commercial counsellor suggests setting up Bangladeshi brand outlets in China and employing agents for marketing, promotion, and advertisement to raise export of leather goods and footwear.
He points out that due to zero-Covid policy issuance of visa for Bangladeshi businesses to China remained suspended since 2020. It has been impacting Bangladesh's export to China seriously.
"The travel barrier facing Bangladeshi businesses to China needs to be removed immediately," he suggests.
Also, he suggests Bangladeshi companies to enhance participation in expositions in Shanghai and Guangzhou.
A senior commerce ministry official told the FE Bangladeshi exporters themselves have to play a proactive role to enhance export to China taking the advantage of zero-duty facilities offered there.
The ministry has been working on to promote export to China and will extend required assistance, he noted.
The thoughts on export enhancement from the sector, incidentally, precede an upcoming fiesta of holy Eid-ul-Azha when an umpteen number of animals are sacrificed across Bangladesh, yielding huge rawhides.
syful-islam@outlook.com