“Well, at the time of raising your question the tanneries of Kanpur, Banthar and Unnao Leather Clusters in the state of UP are again preparing themselves to be closed intermittently for the MAHA-KUMBH NAHAAN (consequent to 6 holy baths of Hindu pilgrims in the river Ganges spanning over a period of about 3 months from mid-December to mid-March) during which all the wet and dry operations of the tanneries located in the river Ganga Basin are ordered to close their production activities intermittently amounting to about 30 days in totality” he began.

“This closure certainly impacts the productivity and export of finished leather and value-added leather products from this region. So, the overseas buyers move-on to other regions in this country if the similar product is available there. But, if those specialised products are not available anywhere else in the country, such as Saddlery & Harness goods, Safety Boots, Buff Upholstery leather, etc; then the customer goes to the neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, etc; to source them. And many a times they do not return to us, as we lose them permanently”.

Looking back to 2024 mostly finished, Mr. Taj Alam kept describing the picture of the performance & importance of the different Indian market segments: footwear, accessories, apparels. “The picture of 2024 for almost all the segments in leather industry remained gloomy because of the impact of the two wars still going on between Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza/Labanon making the global market very volatile and slow moving due to the potential economic recession, inflation and unemployment which significantly reduces output and sale of the products”.

Finally, we could have not missed to ask which challenges and opportunities Indian Association expects for upcoming 2025.

“Well, one of the major challenges for 2025 is the implementation of EUDR. As per the information revealed by the Sustainable Leather Foundation (SLF), UK, voting of the European Parliament's Plenary Session was held on Thursday, 14th of November, approving the proposal to delay the implementation of the EUDR for 12 months. The voting result was 371 in favour of delay, 240 against and 30 abstentions, as the European Parliament foresees unawareness and unpreparedness for the EUDR. The primary purpose for the delay is to give third world countries, operators and traders more time to prepare for their due diligence obligations under the regulation. This delay also means that small and micro enterprises will now have until 30th June 2026 to comply”.

“Other amendments were also approved including the addition of a new "no risk" country category for countries where deforestation risk is considered small or non-existent. This will result in 4 risk categories: No risk, Low Risk, Standard Risk, High Risk. No risk countries will have simplified obligations that will now need to be determined and agreed. The European Commission will complete the country risk profiling no later than 30th June 2025”.

“While this is good news for our industry – he concluded – this delay is intended to allow adequate time to prepare and implement the industry needs to maintain its focus on finding solutions for traceability back to birth farm to ensure that we can meet the requirements of the regulation by December 2025 through frequent multi-stakeholder dialogues and workshops. Other challenges will definitely be to fight the inflation, environmental issues, livelihood sustainability”.