Govt urged to take initiative for LWG certification for leather industry

Stakeholders of the country's leather industry have urged the government to take initiatives as soon as possible to ensure Leather Working Group (LWG) certification for factories to facilitate exporting leather goods to global brands.  

They made the call on the second day of the three-day Bangladesh Leather Footwear & Leathergoods International Sourcing Show in Dhaka on Friday. 

The exhibition was jointly organised by the Leather Goods and Footwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association of Bangladesh and the commerce ministry. 

The LWG certification is mandatory to sell leather and leather goods at a good price to the world's big brands. Currently, there are two LWG certified leather factories in Bangladesh. 

"Only two companies in the country have LWG certification. Finished leathers are not always available to them. Therefore, we have to buy leather from LWG certified foreign companies," Sonjoy Saha, project director of the Bangladesh Show City Ltd, told The Business Standard.

Sonjoy said that he has to import 5-10 lakh square ft leather from foreign companies every year for his company, Five-R Footwear, to manufacture exportable goods.

He added that the Savar Leather Industrial City does not use the chemicals that they are supposed to use, and that is why it is not getting the LWG certificate. "The solid waste that is being dumped there and the chemicals that are being used are not environmentally friendly."

Md Imran Hossain, deputy manager and head of Marketing and Sales of SDS, the company responsible for checking the quality of the leather goods, told TBS, "Foreign buyers have guidelines regarding the manufacture of their products. They asked for products made of leather from a LWG certified factory. Since there are few such factories in our country, many factories import leather to make exportable products. For export, we are very dependent on foreign leather."

Bay Group Managing Director Ziaur Rahman told TBS, "We want the leather industry to get the LWG certificate soon. It will benefit everyone."

He also called for concerted efforts to achieve the target of $10 billion leather exports in 2030.

Currently, Bangladesh exports leather products worth $1.7 billion annually.

Syed Nasim Manzur, managing director, Apex Footwear Ltd and president of the Leather-goods and Footwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association of Bangladesh, said, "In order to use domestic leather to manufacture exportable products, we need to ensure that Savar Leather is functioning properly as per the Central Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) standards."

"Meanwhile, a task force is working to select world-class, proven CETP technology suppliers from developed countries to evaluate and retrofit the CETP of Savar Leather Industrial City, so that it can achieve LWG Gold Standard in the earliest possible time," he added.

Manzur further said that Bangladesh can work with its development partners like the EU, Japan, ADB and the World Bank Group to build long-term matching fund facilities for exporters to build sustainable capacity.