Tanzanian leather industry remains at low ebb
Published: 2nd Sep 2021
Himo Town/Area Moshi, Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania - The response from Leather Association of Tanzania executive secretary Freddy Silvester Kabala to our questions for the feature on sheep and goat skins leathers in the last issue arrived too late for inclusion. Here are his answers:
laughter conditions, storage and preservation of hides and skins are very poor in Tanzania, according to the Leather Association of Tanzania.
Approximately how many sheep and goats does Tanzania have?
21.29 million goats and 7.8 million sheep
Approximately how many are slaughtered per year?
3.63 million goats and 1,71 million sheep
Approximately how many skins are bought by tanneries?
Currently less than 0.5 million skins
Approximately how many are pickled and exported?
There are no exports of pickled skins
How many processed to wet blue and exported?
Currently there are no exports of wet blue skins
How many are finished for export?
There is no export of finished leather.
And how many finished for sale to local manufacturers of footwear and leather goods?
In Tanzania we had 10 tanneries (7 processing to wet blue stage for export and 3 making finished leather for the domestic market). However production performance has been fluctuating over the years, reaching a peak in 2014. Over 90% of tanning output was semi processed leather (wet blue) for export.
Following the year 2015 there has been a sharp decline in demand and prices for the leather, forcing 7 tanneries to close and only 3 processing finished leather for the domestic market.
Have the standards of animal husbandry, slaughter and flay improved over the last few years, and has that benefitted the tanning industry?
Not really. The majority of livestock production is still carried out in a traditional practice on a household scale. Livestock production for 80% consists of traditional agro pastoralists and 14% of pastoralists. This traditional livestock production practice often causes defects in animal skin resulting in the poor quality of hides and skins.
Adequate slaughtering facilities to support leather manufacturing are not available in Tanzania. Most of these are simple buildings where killing and dressing are carried out on the floor. Informal slaughters also operate throughout the country with poor building conditions, hygiene, and safety. Inadequate slaughter facilities cause animal skin to be mixed with blood and faeces which makes skin preservation hard. In addition, slaughtering facilities in Tanzania are located far from tanneries creating additional transportation cost and potential damage that deteriorates skins quality.
What is export demand like for the skins, and is that stable, growing or shrinking?
As pointed out above, export demand has been shrinking rapidly since 2015 and currently there is completely no market for skins, forcing a lot of skins to be dumped. In the last two years there has been a huge demand for raw dried cattle hides from West Africa - Nigeria in particular - where they end up being consumed as food.
Do export customers prefer them to be less processed or more processed? Is that preference changing?
Less processed.
What is the domestic demand like for the skins and is that stable, growing or shrinking?
Domestic demand is not growing due to the market being flooded with imports of synthetic (PVC) products made of synthetic leather and second hand (used) products.
What influence are government policies having on the sheep and goat leather industry? Are there other policies needed?
No, the problem is the market.
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