Special Correspondent :
The prices of rawhide have suffered a three-decade low this year thanks to an active market manipulation by a powerful ‘syndicate’.
As the rawhide price has gone down to record low, seasonal traders and hide merchants are yet to sell it collected on the Eid day and thereof raising everyday preservation cost worsening their woes further.
The situation has also raised fear of an unabated smuggling of the stuff to a neighbouring country where rawhide price is higher than local market, according to market sources.
“Prices of rawhide hit historic low this year as tanners are exploiting seasonal traders by fixing unreasonable prices which are even going down the government’s fixed rate,” Lokman Hossain, a Savar based small hide trader, told The New Nation yesterday.
He has purchased 120 pieces of rawhide during Eid-ul-Azha, but could not sell those due to low price. “Now I’m struggling to sell those in absence of fair prices in market dominated by the syndicate,” he added.
Lokman Hossain mentioned that he was counting extra money to buy salt every day for the preservation of rawhide forcing him financial hardship. “We’re facing immense problem to sell hides of sacrificial animals as the wholesalers are offering prices below the buying cost. They are working on behalf of the syndicate to dictate rawhide prices in the market with an ulterior motive to make more profit,” Azizur Rahman, a hide trader in Dinajpur, told The New Nation yesterday.
In this context, both the traders called upon the government to allow export of salted rawhide saying the move can help break the unholy nexus of tanners and ensure fair rawhide prices.
Brushing aside the allegation of market manipulation, Sakhawat Ullah, General Secretary of Bangladesh Tanners’ Association (BTA) told The New Nation that local rawhide prices have gone down to historic low due to volatile situation in the international leather market.
“We’re not dictating prices of rawhide and skin. The current trend of market prices is largely determined by the global factors,” he added.
Sakhawat Ullah, said tanners are yet to start their full-fledged procurement from the seasonal traders and it may be created some confusion and rumour among the stakeholders of leather sector centering the procurement price of rawhides.
“We will start full-fledged buying from seasonal traders from September 1 with the rates fixed by the government. And then it will drive the raw hide market towards right direction,” he said this at a press briefing in the city on Saturday. BTA President Shaheen Ahmed termed the price fall as an isolated incident, hoping that the seasonal traders will get fair prices if they preserve the rawhides accordingly. Prior to Eid-ul-Azha, the government set the price of cowhide at Tk 45-50 per square foot in Dhaka and Tk 35-40 in the rest of the county this year, lowering the price from the previous year. The price of goatskin was set at Tk 18-20 in Dhaka.
But rawhides traded below the government fixed rates in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country due to tanner’s apathy to offer fair prices.
On spot visits at different parts of the capital, it was found that agents of tanners were seen buying a good quality and big size cowhide at the price of Tk 400 to Tk 500. “I have spent Tk 500 for per piece of good quality cowhide on an average this year. But I had to spent Tk 1000 to Tk 1200 for the same hide last year,” Ramiz Uddin, who has been 30 years in rawhide trade told this correspondent. He brought 300 prices of rawhides for a tannery from the city’s Science Laboratory intersection during the Eid day. “Even 30 years ago I had to buy a good quality cowhide at Tk 700 per piece. But this year, people sold the same quality hide at Tk 500-700 sending the rawhide price to a historic low,” said Ramiz Uddin recalling his years back memory in the raw hide trade. Sources said, seasonal traders of the bordering districts have already preserved huge quantities of rawhide due to lack of fair prices. If they do not get their expected prices from the tanners, they might sell those to Indian traders through smuggling.
