More cuts in prices of raw hide of sacrificial animals are likely this year as the leather sector businesses are going to set the price of the cowhide at Tk 40-45 a square feet for Dhaka and Tk 30-35 a square feet for outside Dhaka. The commerce ministry on Monday asked the traders to set ‘rational’ prices for raw hide in 48 hours for animals to be sacrificed during Eid-ul-Azha on September 13. A formal meeting of Bangladesh Finished Leather, Leather Goods and Footwear Exporters Association, Bangladesh Tanners Association and Bangladesh Hide and Skin Merchants Association will be held today (Wednesday) to set the price of raw hide of sacrificial animals. ‘It is obvious that the prices of raw hide would be lower than the last year as the prices of the item dropped by 30-32 per cent on the international market,’ Mohammad Delwar Hossain, chairman of Bangladesh Hide and Skin Merchants Association, told New Age. He said that besides the international price fall, the hide traders would consider the recent hike in salt price to set the raw hide prices. Citing fall in prices and slow demand in the international market, Delwar said, ‘In the meeting we will take decision whether the raw hide prices will be 25 or 30 per cent lower than the previous year.’ Last year, the leather sector businesses had the prices of salted cowhide at Tk 50-55 a square feet for Dhaka and Tk 40-45 a square feet for outside Dhaka which was Tk 20 lower than the rate of 2014. In 2014, the tanners had set the price of per square feet of cowhide at Tk 70-75 in Dhaka and Tk 60-65 across the country outside Dhaka, goatskin at Tk 30-35 and buffalo hide at Tk 35-40 per square feet. In 2013, the tanners bought per square feet of cowhide for Tk 85-95 in Dhaka and Tk 75-80 outside Dhaka, goatskin for Tk 50-55 and buffalo hide for Tk 40-45. This year tanners are going to cut the prices of raw hide of sacrificial animals for three consecutive years citing the same excuse of fall in prices and slow demand in the international market. Md Nurul Alam, managing director of Pragati Leather Complex, said that they were not willing to set the prices of raw hide but it has to be done due to the government direction. Considering the international market of hide and salt, prices in the local market of cow hide should not be more than Tk 40-45 a square feet for Dhaka and Tk 30-35 a square feet for outside Dhaka, he said. One of the leaders of Bangladesh Tanners Association said that the prices of raw hide would be 20-25 per cent lower than the previous year.
