Performance of industries in general and select industries like salt, cement, leather, tyre and rubber, paper and pulp were being considered to be growing tremendously with various initiatives taken by Government of India and investment in the sector by private players will surely deliver bottom line results in coming years.

India which has around 3% share in the global trade in leather compared to China's 20%. Realizing the growth potential of the leather industry which occupies a prominent place in the Indian economy, the Government of India has been making significant efforts to promote rapid advancement of the industry. With generous export earnings, employment potential, growth and being the 10th largest sector among the Indian manufacturing sector it employs 2.5 million people and provides employment to weaker sections/minorities, of which about 30% were women.

The Leather Industry occupies a prominent place in the Indian economy, in view of its substantial export earnings, employment potential and growth. Leather and its products were amongst the top ten export earners for the country and is the 10th largest among the Indian manufacturing sector.

The Indian Leather industry is organized as tanning and finishing, Leather garments, Leather goods etc with Kanpur, Agra, Kolkata, and Chennai were among the major production clusters. India has vast natural resources of raw hides & skins due to which the export of leather products from India has undergone a structural change resulting in increased exports of various leather products.

Some snippets from National Foreign Trade Policy 2004-09 were as follows: a) Enhancement of duty free entitlement from 1% to 3% for leather products and footwear; b) CVD exemption on lining and interlining materials, customs; c) Duty exempted on machinery & equipments for effluent treatment plants; d) 5% concessional import duty extended to certain additional machinery; e) support by implementing International marketing programme through MDA and MAIS; f) by forming various inter ministerial committees.

During the 10th Five Year Plan 400 crores was made available for implementation of various schemes under "Indian Leather Development Programme" which comprises of two programmes one was Integrated Development of Leather Sector and second was Infrastructure Strengthening of Leather Sector. Some schemes like support to Rural Artisans, INTECHMART and saddler development were under implementation as continues schemes, from the 9th Five Year Plan.

From policy changes to new proposals there were still certain bottle necks which were actually hindering the growth process of leather industry. Some of them in the form of SWOT analysis were as follows:

However with such a good credentials still there were certain weaknesses like Lack of warehousing support from the government; International price fluctuation; Lack of strong presence in the global fashion market; Unawareness of international standards by many companies which has also transformed these into threats like major part of the industry is unorganized; Limited scope for mobilizing funds through private placements and public issues like many businesses were family-owned; Difficulty in obtaining bank loans resulting in high cost of private borrowing; Stricter international standards; Lack of communication facilities and skills.

The views are personal and have been written after study of various reports and publications.

Source: Press Releases the Hindu, Business Line, Reports published by Ministry of Commerce and Industry.