Cooperation to transform leather industry sector

Addis Ababa, June 22 (WIC) - The 1st Indio-Ethiopian leather trends, product design and quality assurance workshop aimed at bolstering Indian government cooperation in the sector to improve the technologies of leather processing industries in Ethiopia, was held here yesterday.

Industry State Minister, Tadesse Haile, through his representative, said Ethiopia has the largest livestock resource in Africa which serve as a reliable source of raw materials for the leather and leather products industry in the country.   

“However, due to various reasons and factors, we are unable to economically benefit both in terms of export and creating job opportunities. So, it can be said that the contribution of the industry to the national economy is below expectations compared to the raw materials our county has. A number of obstacles among others, lack of awareness, modern technology, and market access coupled with low quality of products hindered our advantage,” he said.


He said hard working and technological cooperation is vital to win the global market competition and earn about 500 million USD by the end the GTP plan period.   

Leather Industry Development Institute Director General Wondu Legesse also said Ethiopia is known for fine grain pattern and fiber structures of cattle and worldwide reputable high land sheep skins for their flexibility, thickness, structure and cleanness along with abundant livestock population.   

He said that technological cooperation with Indian Central Leather Research Institute would enable to modernize the processing techniques of leather industries and make full use of the available raw materials due synthesizing raw leathers to finished products for the domestic and foreign market as well.   

Dr. A.B. Mandal, Central Leather Research Institute Director of India, through his representative on his part said the cooperation is a bench-mark to advance the processing technologies of local leather industries and to standardize leather products for the global market.

According to him, the Indian cooperation venture in the leather industries are among others, backing up the industries to improve fashion trends, design automation, productivity and assured quality.