Positive plans for Indian leather industry

A report on the 2013 India International Leather Fair and seminar in Noida.

by Christine Anscombe

The 28th India International Leather Fair (IILF) 2013 was recently held in Chennai (Madras). This event was jointly organised by the India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), the Council for Leather Export (CLE) and the CSIR-Central Leather Research Institute (CSIR-CLRI).

The leather and leather products industry holds a prominent place in the Indian economy, as it is one of the top ten industries generating export income, with a figure of US$ 4.86 billion being reached in 2011-12. It is an employment intensive sector employing around 2.5 million people and it benefits from easily accessible raw material. The CLE estimates that 21 per cent of the world’s cattle and buffalo and 11 per cent of the world’s sheep and goats are in India.

In terms of leather footwear and garment production, India is second only to China, with demand for products for both export and domestic markets growing in line with an increasingly affluent society. During the inauguration of the 2013 India International Leather Fair, CLE Chairman Rajendra K Jalan explained how the Indian government has established two major initiatives. The ‘Integrated Development of the Leather Sector (IDLS)’ scheme intends to achieve the modernisation of production units, and the ‘Mega Leather Cluster’ scheme aims to establish ten new leather production areas across the country during the next five years.

Mr Jalan highlighted that infrastructure development is essential and that the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is supporting projects to establish testing laboratories in the leather clusters at Ranipet, Kanpur, Jalandhar and Agra.

SATRA Technology is regularly supporting companies in India through testing, provision of laboratory test equipment and laboratory accreditation, and installation of production efficiency systems. The first installation of the recently launched SATRA TimeLine has been made in a leading Indian footwear manufacturer. Our activity in India became very apparent from the large number of delegates visiting the SATRA IILF stand and the number of enquiries generated during the three very busy days on which the fair was held. Plans are already underway to attend once again in 2014 as part of the continued support we offer to Indian companies.

Publishing Data

This article was originally published on page 44 of the April 2013 issue of SATRA Bulletin.

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