Bangladeshi traders say they want rawhide prices lowered this year, as animal skin has become cheaper in the international market.
This year’s rawhide prices will be fixed at a meeting on Wednesday.
Bangladesh Tanners Association President Shaheen Ahmed said they still had 40 to 50 percent of processed animal skin held over from last year.
“We will have to buy rawhide at low prices compared to last year’s, as international prices have fallen,” he told bdnews24.com after a meeting at the commerce ministry.
Prices were slashed last year, too. In Dhaka, Tannery businessmen fixed the price of each square foot of cow skin between Tk 70 and 75.
Outside the capital, it was between Tk 60 and 65.
Buffalo skin prices were fixed at Tk 35 to Tk 40.
Ahmed said they had felt cattle supply during the Eid-ul-Azha this year would be low following Indian measures to plug cattle smuggling.
“We thought we’d get something around one million pieces of hide this year but the market situation is different,” he said. “There won’t be any shortage of animals.”
Demand for sacrificial animals runs high during the Eid-ul-Azha, which will be celebrated on Sep 25.
Each pound of animal skin cost $1.06 in February but the price has come down to $0.76, according to a tannery owners’ report presented at Sunday’s meeting.
It quoted the Export Promotion Bureau as saying that last year’s animal skin export target had not been met.
