Leather working group calls for increased investment

Prince Sunduzani Business Reporter
THE National Leather Working Group (NLWG) has called for increased investment towards strengthening the livestock and leather value chain and developing adequate skills base to support export oriented industrialisation and growth.

NLWG chairperson Jacob Nyathi said the country should focus on supporting the growth of the leather industry so as to have a huge stake in the domestic market as well as to compete in the global market. Recent media reports indicate there has been a decrease of about 90 percent in the exports of leather goods since 2014.

“The domestic market share and exports orientation in the sector is low. There is complete lack of sector development in terms of infrastructure, skills, institutional investment in design innovation, research, and development,” he said.

“Investment and technology demonstration in industry is low and raw leather resources are under beneficiated. What needs to be done is prioritisation of development of the beef sector, which will in turn improve the leather sector.”

Mr Nyathi said there was a need for leather value chain players to be innovative and productive to access global opportunities and widen their export market share.

“We need leaders who can drive change, who can respond to global opportunities and who have the skills and abilities to develop a world class workforce. We need to embark on industry internationalisation, growing our regional presence and penetrating global markets,” he said.

Mr Nyathi stressed the need to improve the quality of raw hides through educating communal farmers on slaughtering of animals and preservation of hides.

“We need to have a facility that will work on improvement of raw hides. This will include suitable vehicles to travel to rural slaughterhouses, or farms, educational materials, infrastructure for in-depth training and behaviour adjustment,” he said.

Zimbabwe’s leather products are mainly exported to regional markets with the major markets being South Africa, Zambia, Namibia and Malawi.