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Tanzania: Govt to Revamp Battered Hides And Skins Export Sector
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The East African (Nairobi)
12 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Wilfred Edwin
Nairobi
Tanzania is in the process of improving its hides and skins production in order to improve quality and earnings from the sector.
The Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries has launched a Hides, Skins and Leather Development Strategy to address problems in the supply and demand chain as well as raise policy-related issues that hinder development of the sector.
Permanent Secretary in the ministry Dr Charles Nyamurunda said, "The strategy will address problems in the whole value chain and facilitate improvement of the quality of raw materials, improved capacity utilisation of the existing tanneries, attract more investment, facilitate acquisition of modern technology and product development and strengthening of stakeholder organisations."
Although Tanzania ranks third in Africa in terms of livestock population after Sudan and Ethiopia, its hides and skin sector is are underexploited.
According to current figures, the country has about 18.5 million cattle, 13.1 million goats and 3.5 million sheep - a population size that has immense potential for value addition, generation of employment and increased export earnings.
Hides and skins are also important raw materials for the tanning industry and for the manufacture of finished leather and leather products such as shoes, handbags and belts.
In the early 1980s, the leather sector performed satisfactorily and at its peak in 1984 it employed over 5,200 people. It is estimated that almost half of the hides and skins entering the commercial processing chain are of low quality, mainly due to poor animal husbandry practices, poor handling at abattoirs, poor preservation methods and inadequate enforcement of the existing law.
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Mr Nyamurunda said the problem of low quality hides and skins occasioned by defects extends to each of the stages of processing, thus ultimately determining the price. "This calls for intervention options or damage controls as early as possible in the value chain, at the pre-slaughter stage," he said.
The Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries recently put out a tender for consultancy services on benchmarking the hides, skins and leather. In 2005/2006 the country collected 1,660,000 hides, 1,450,000 goat skins and 950,000 sheep skins valued at Tsh6.8 billion ($5.6 million).
Tanzania, along with Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, is already part of the Commercialisation of Hides and Skins project for improving collection and quality in smallholder farming, funded by the Common Fund for Commodities under the supervision of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and is being run by the Eastern and Southern Africa Leather Industries Association.
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