Leather Sourcing Meet on 1st February 2019 at Chennai

The Council for Leather Exports (CLE) is an Export Promotion Organization functioning under the aegis of Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt of India with the prime objective of promoting export of leather and leather products.

With an annual turnover of over US$ 17.74 billion, the export of leather and leather products increased manifold over the past decades and touched US$ 5.74 billion during 2017-18.

Tanning industry is the backbone of the entire leather industry and availability of raw materials namely raw hides & skins are the primary reasons for the growth of the tanning industry. In fact, India is one among the largest livestock holding countries and is bestowed with an affluence of raw materials. India produces 3 billion sq ft of leather annually meeting 10% of global leather demand.

Considering its growth potential, the leather sector has been identified as one of the Focus Sectors under the Make in India programme and has been set an ambitious turnover target of USD 23.47 billion to be achieved by 2019-20. It is estimated that the leather industry requires about 5 billion sq.ft of leather to meet the production demand of leather products.

Towards achieving the target, there is huge requirement of raw materials like Raw Hides & Skins, Wet Blue and Crust (Semi Finished Leathers), & Finished Leather and hence an urgent need to look out for new avenues from where the raw materials can be sourced and imported into India in order to meet the targeted revenues by year 2020. Manufacturers of Footwear, Leather Accessories & Garments are enhancing production to take advantage of expanded market opportunities within the country and overseas and are looking to augment their raw material sources too. In fact, India's import of raw hides/skins and leather has been increasing from US$ 472.60 million in 2010-11 to US$ 609.59 million in 2016-17, growing at a CAGR of 4.33% in the last seven years, indicating thereby the increasing demand for raw materials from overseas as the same cannot be met by domestic sources alone. Raw hides/skins and leather accounts for about 50% of India's total import value of leather and leather products.

Hence, the Council with a view to strengthen the raw material availability, is organizing the Second Edition of the Sourcing Meet on 1st February 2019 during the India International Leather Fair, Chennai, (Jan 31-Feb 03, 2019). The objective of the Sourcing Meet is to arrange B2B meetings between the international suppliers of raw hides/skins, wet-blue, crust, leather and Indian manufacturers of leather products to facilitate their sourcing of Raw hides, skins, wet blue, crust leather etc, and to meet the new capacity developed for production of shoes, bags and garments.

The details of the programme are as follows :

Date & Time : 1st February 2019 - 10.00 AM to 2.00 PM

Venue : ITC Grand Chola Chennai ( A five star hotel) where the program includes lunch & tea/coffee etc .

Trading companies, producers, collectors or tanners, Raw hides and Skins Dealers, traders, producers and suppliers of Wet blue hides and skins, Suppliers/Tanners exporting crust for shoes and bags production etc, who are looking for new markets or to increase their business etc can participate in the event.

Documentation and registration form

****************