Kanpur, Agra buck leather export trends

Bucking the trend, the two major leather centres of Uttar Pradesh "" Kanpur and Agra "" have registered an impressive growth in exports.

While the leather exports at Rs 8,779.7 crore dipped by 4.92 per cent in 2002-03, the Kanpur-Unnao and Agra regions registered an increase of 13.04 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively.

Leather goods worth Rs 1,439.13 crore and Rs 563.4 crore were exported from the Kanpur-Unnao and Agra regions, respectively.

Agra, part of the northern zone in terms of leather classification, witnessed a jump in exports from Rs 514.8 crore in 2001-02 to Rs 563.4 crore 2002-03.

Considering respective product exports, the all India exports in finished leather was up 7.81 per cent to Rs 2,361.2 crore, leather footwear 5.14 per cent to Rs 1,982.5, footwear components down 25.64 per cent to Rs 8,296.47. While leather garments exports declined 29.74 per cent to Rs 1,269.1 crore, leather goods saw a marginal 2.92 per cent increase to Rs 1,998.5 crore.

While footwear exports from Agra increased to Rs 519.5 crore from Rs 461.27 crore, component exports declined to Rs 36.2 crore from Rs 51.4 crore.

From the Kanpur-Unnao area (central region), exports of finished leather increased to Rs 486 crore from Rs 422 crore, footwear from Rs 375.42 crore to Rs 397.15 crore, but footwear components declined to Rs 187.03 crore from Rs 192.28 crore.

However, the impressive increase came from exports of harness and saddlery, which jumped from Rs 207 crore to Rs 271 crore. Leather apparel increased from Rs 17.21 crore to Rs 24.31 crore.

The data hints at a new trend "" increase in finished leather exports. This shows that not all leather is being converted into value-added products and also indicates at the difficulty in pushing leather products in the international market.

Footwear exports from Kanpur and Agra increased by Rs 93 crore in comparison with 2001-02, he all India increase is about Rs 97 crore. This suggests that not much is happening in other leather centres like Madras and Jallandhar on the footwear front.