Tanneries have procured over half a million pieces of rawhide during Eid-ul-Azha this year and plan to start buying salted animal skins on Thursday.
More than half of the total collection was made on Eid day, according to Shahin Ahmed, chief of the Bangladesh Tanners Association, reports bdnews24.com.
"Tannery owners bought 550,000 rawhides directly [from merchants]. Around 350,000 skins were collected on Eid day," he said on Wednesday.
Last year, tanners collected around 300,000 pieces of rawhide during Eid, the most productive time of the year for the industry.
Usually, staff and representatives of local mosques, madrasas and orphanages collect rawhide as a donation from households in Dhaka. Some seasonal traders also buy rawhide on Eid day and then sell them to wholesalers.
Wholesalers later preserve the rawhide with salt before selling them to the tanneries. Every year, the commerce ministry fixes the price at which the tanneries purchase rawhide. Some tanneries, however, buy rawhide directly from the middlemen.
The government has fixed the price of salted cowhide at Tk 47 to Tk 52 per square foot for the tanneries in Dhaka. The price is Tk 40 to Tk 44 for the tanneries outside Dhaka. In both cases, the price increased by Tk 7 over last year. Salted goatskin was sold to the tanneries at a rate of Tk 18 to Tk 20 per square foot across the country, a Tk 3 increase from last year.
Shahin lauded the 'timely steps' taken by the government ahead of Eid for the upturn in collections this year.
"A monitoring cell was formed at the local level with the help of deputy commissioners and as a result, rawhides were preserved in different upazilas."
He also praised the government for not allowing rawhides to be brought to Dhaka from other parts of the country for a week after Eid day.
"Tannery owners lack the capacity to collect and store millions of pieces of rawhides in half a day. That is why the skins have been preserved with salt in different districts."
"We will start collecting salted skins on Thursday or Friday," he said.
Asked why rawhide prices are lower this time, Shahin said, "The prices of leather or leather goods have not decreased in the international market. We aren't able to sell the leather we produce to brand buyers."