India could replace China as leader in leather industry

With the changing global trade environment, India now has an opportunity to overtake China as the leader in the world leather industry.

Already ranking second in leather exports throughout the world, with exports worth $2.5 billion, the country's leather industry has set a target of $7 billion by 2010.

To discuss the possibilities of achieving this target CNBC-TV18 and DHL held an International Leather Summit in Agra last weekend which was attended by the industry experts who debated and reflected on critical issues facing this sector raging from the strategy of global benchmarking to the need for an FDI policy for the industry.

Strategies to enhance government support and appropriate strategies to remain globally competitive were also discussed.

Dawar Footwear Managing Director Puran Dawar said the need of the day was to change the complete mentality of the industry which had stagnated in terms of design, labour issues and technological advancements.

He said if the Indian footwear industry was to compete with China the footwear components industry too needed to be strengthened as the units manufacturing soles and other footwear components were still in formative stages.

According to Park Exports Managing Director Nazir Ahmed the footwear industry of the country was facing an acute shortage of trained labour after the ban on child labour, which had resulted in children growing up without the hereditary talent of shoe manufacturing as their parents could not afford to train them and they were no longer allowed to work in the shoe factories.

In view of this, it had become imperative for the Indian footwear industry to hire some trainees or develop some footwear training schools like the Central Footwear Training Institute.

He said footwear exports comprised the major part of global leather business and slowly India had come close to displacing China due to the increasing share of business being diverted towards India by both Europe and the United States as the Indian companies excelled in both technologically and in terms of design.

The summit was also addressed by HSBC Division Head(SME) Bhuvnesh Khanna and Federation of Indian Export Organisations Chairman RK Dhawan.