The Federation of Indian Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (FISME) shared the South Asian experience of integrating leather supply chains with representatives of over 15 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa at a conference in Ethiopia last week.
The consultation on 'Promoting Regional Supply Chains in Leather and Leather Products in Sub-Saharan Africa' was organised jointly by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) and the Commonwealth Secretariat.
FISME had last year helped bring together warring trade bodies of the South Asian region and facilitated the formation of a unified regional trade body, Leather Industries Association of South Asia.
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The initiative was aimed at regional technological cooperation to set mandatory and voluntary standards, market access and trade and investment facilitation and aggregation of supply chain information about hide and skins, chemicals, accessories and designs. Sub-Saharan Africa, excluding Arabic-speaking North African countries, has seen a growth of five per cent a year in the 2000s, compared to two per cent in the 1990s. But these countries still have to diversify their export baskets in terms of products as well as destinations.
Leather is seen as a major focus sector. Unctad believes trade volumes can increase ten-fold if trade barriers are removed from leather supply chains in Sub-Saharan Africa.
