ADDIS ABABA–Ministry of Industry (MoI) stated that a leather development Strategy document is highly required to make “Let Ethiopia Produce” initiative effective.
Speaking at the workshop organize yesterday in order to discuss the implementation of leather development strategy document with government officials, stakeholders, and owners of manufacturers aiming at addressing the leather sector challenges, Industry Minister, Melaku Alebel said that communication gap is a serious factor that has hindered the effective realization of ‘let Ethiopia produce’ motive.
Therefore, all hierarchical leaders ranging from local chief s to the Federal senior officials should examine the initiative to help the nation get what it deserves out of the leather sector.
Presenting a discussion paper, Leather and Leather Products Industry Research and Development Center Manager Mohammed Hussein said that the leather industry has been facing various challenges like shortage of chemicals, COVID-19 pandemic, quality reduction, foreign currency crunch, reduction of international price, capacity limitation, and thestagnant of some fabrics.
“Though the country is capable of producing 41 million leather and pickle produces, it produces only 22 million ones at present,” he underlined.
As to Mohammed, the leather development strategy document will play a significant role in reducing the challenge via encouraging import substitution following research based undertakings and giving equal chance among stakeholders.
He added that utilizing the potential of the leather industry hand-in-hand with wise use of resource helps bring meaningful outcome from the sector. Besides, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Industry, leather providers or exporters, Ministry of Trade, and various states bureaus should jointly work to eliminate leather constraints. Ethiopia is exporting leather to China, India, Europe, and leather products and shoes to the U.S., Mohammed noted.
Furthermore, participants who came from various states, manufacturing industry, leather exporters, government heads and others raised their question and suggestion in a manner towards addressing the leather industry constraints and bringing significant impact in that regard.
BY MESERET BEHAILU
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2023
