Indian leather exports up 7.42 %

Chennai, Jan 25 (UNI) Leather exports in the country saw an increase of 7.42 per cent at 1.4 billion USD compared to last fiscal.

Talking to newspersons, Director, Council for Leather Exports, (CLE) Dr K Elongavan said there had also been a steady increase of footwear exports at about 19 per cent compared to the previous year.

"We have fixed a export target of 2.96 billion USD for the next fiscal," he added.

Dr Elongavan also mentioned there was substantial increase in orders from existing client countries like Hongkong, China, Italy, Germany, UK and the US.

"We are also chalking out a new plan to increase skilled manpower to upgrade the techniques in the leather industries to compete at the highest level," he said adding new training programmes will also be introduced in different leather institutes across the region.

When asked about the international competition in leather industry, Dr Elangovan pointed out countries like Hong Kong and Thailand were evincing more interest in buying Indian leather products due to their high quality.

Besides, many countries were trying to shift their manufacturing faclities from major leather exporting nations like Romania and Spain due to rising costs.

Dr Elangovan said "India will definitely be the front runner to grab this opportunity." UNI