KARACHI: Around 8.1 million sacrificial animals were slaughtered in three days of this Eidul Azha in the country, members of Pakistan Tanneries Association (PTA) informed. The cow slaughtering registered an increase around 6-7 percent to around 3 million this year as compared to last Eid due to higher price of goats and other small animals. Executive member of PTA, Agha Saiddain said there was a decline of around 5 percent in small animals’ slaughtering this Eid. Around 4 million goats were slaughtered this Eid. Sheep and camels were also slaughtered to around one million in number in the country. The number of sheep for qurbani remained high in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He said around 27 percent skin and hides were damaged due to non-professional slaughterers this Eid ul Azha. This year the price of a cow hide ranges from Rs 1,600-Rs 1,900, goat Rs 240-Rs 250 per skin and for sheep the price stands at Rs 370-Rs 400 per skin. “The demand from the tanneries is still not growing as compared to last season because of decline in export orders”, he added. “Around 10 percent of the skins and hides are damaged due to power and gas loadshedding at the main tanneries centres of the country, resulting loss of Rs more than 2.25 billion”. He said international buyers prefer the finished leather especially made from skins and hides of sacrificial animals, as they have much stretching quality, healthy and fresh material. The buyers of European Union and Far East prefer skin and hides of Pakistan animals besides leather garments. Pakistan is the Asian largest market of skin and hides and during Eid ul Azha, around 45 percent of the total production of a year is achieved. He said, “Tanneries at Karachi, Lahore, Kasur and Shiekupura were facing power load shedding and interruption of gas supply. The recent power and gas load shedding has caused irreparable loss to the tanning industry, which is a continuous process industry. Frequent power breakdowns have spoiled our quality of leather, which was deemed at second number after Italy. The tanning industry was striving hard to achieve number one position in the world but due to power and gas load shedding it was hard even we lose second position. He said that tanning industry buys 45 percent of annual requirement of skins and hides on Eid uz Azha. These skins with poor curing during collection are perishable and need to be process on priority. Unfortunately immediately after Eid the gas companies shut down connections and this has put tanneries in great trouble. He said hides and skins if not tanned in time would perish and it would be impossible to pay back to the poor suppliers who collect these skins from town to town and village to village and finally are sold in hide markets. The leather industry is around $1.20 billion industry and second largest after textile is at the mercy of WAPDA and SNGPL. He said the leather garment share consists of around 65 percent of our total exports and it is the second largest export of the country after textile. The industry employs more than 200,000 people directly, producing fine quality finished leather for export as well as for home consumption. It contributes 5 percent of GDP and 7 percent to the overall export earnings of the country. He said decline of 21 percent in export of leather in fiscal year 2017 is alarming and need to be addressed with relief package in line with Textile Sector. He urged Federal Minister of Commerce to take up the matter with the Ministry of Industry and implement leather vision 2018. He repeated his demand to allow leather industry of Pakistan similar incentives as allowed under 10thand 11th leather Plan of India with an outlay of Rs 13120 million. He said the leather sector has a potential to push its exports to $ billion from present $963.88 million in next five years if government pays due attention to this important sector which is number two export industry after textile with a capability to generate employment in the country. The global share of Pakistan in export market is 0.13 percent, which was 0.21 percent in 1999, showing decline of 1/3 in 17 years. Published in Daily Times, September 7th 2017.