Tanners’ absence prolongs rawhide traders’ woes in Natore

Traders at Natore’s Railgate Bazar, the second-largest rawhide market in the country, are yet to find any buyers despite the tanners’ agreement to buy rawhide after several rounds of meetings with the government.

Tanners generally start collecting rawhides from the market from the second week of Eid-ul-Adha, but no one has been seen in the market yet, a number of traders said.

They said the question of the tannery owners’ payment of outstanding dues is yet to be resolved.

“Generally, tannery owners pay their dues before Eid. It helps reduce the traders’ capital crisis. But this year only five to six tannery owners have paid their dues,” said Shariful Islam, the president of Rawhide Merchant Group, Natore.

“Many merchants could not buy rawhide because of capital shortage. This resulted in the fall of prices of rawhides of sacrificial animals. Some merchants bought salted rawhide from different districts, but now the tanners are not buying,” he added.

There are more than 200 warehouses in Railgate Bazar of Natore. The merchants collect rawhide from the seasonal vendors and sell them to the tanners on commission.

The merchants said they charge a commission of Tk30-50 for a cowhide and Tk7-10 for a goathide.

Tannery owners collect more than 50 percent of rawhides of the country from Natore. Every year, rawhides of Tk900 crore are traded in this market during Eid.

The country’s rawhide business is in a disarray this year due to the fall of rawhide prices during Eid-ul-Adha.

The traders and tanners blamed each other for the damage caused to rawhides.

Thousands of rawhides were dumped, the highest in a decade, while a large number of valuable rawhides rotted in different places across the country.

Earlier, the government had fixed the prices of rawhide – Tk45-50 for a square foot of cowhide in Dhaka and Tk35-40 in the rest of the country.

The price of a male goathide was fixed at Tk18-20 and female goathide at Tk13-15.