China Breaks New Ground in Leather Technology

Tag : cattle hides

The idea is to share the vast know-how gained by China in the last20 years of its rise to leather producing heavyweight, says courseorganiser, Yu Shuxian, a senior engineer at the China Leather andFootwear Industry Research Institute.
"We want to help developing countries grow theirindustry," she told Business Daily. The countriesparticipating include Tanzania, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe,Zambia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and more from South America and Asia.
China's Ministry of Commerce is funding students' flights,accommodation, month-long training course and visits to localtanneries as part of its assistance to developing countries.
Ding Zhiwen, another researcher at the institute, says the leatherindustry in most developing countries is small and cannot fund thekind of research work carried out in China. "We have severaluniversities that do research on leather but few of these countrieshave that capacity."
Kenya's leather industry badly needs an injection of newtechnology. The sub-sector has hardly changed over the years andseen little investment. Yet it has the potential to become animportant source of exports, particularly if it can move up a gearfrom semi-processed hides to finished leather, worth more than fivetimes more than the midway product.
Nancy Gitau, a leather development officer at Kenya's Ministry ofLivestock and Development, is impressed by the Chinese technologytaught in the month-long course in Beijing.
"They're really advanced here. They have developed their ownmachines and they're cheaper than American ones."
Among the new technologies being taught is a tanning method thatuses less of the potentially harmful chromium chemicals common instandard processing. China is also using more vegetable dyes toreplace chemical products.
"We're looking into new chemicals to improve the quality ofleather and to reduce environmental pollution. We're alsointroducing new equipment to increase productivity," says MsYu.
Tanneries have a large impact on the environment, being heavy usersof water and chemicals.
China has recently raised its standards on waste water treatmentand also increased enforcement of regulations on pollutants. Someof its smaller tanneries have been forced to close because they donot meet standards.
Others need to adopt new technology. In Nairobi, Elkanah Malala,senior assistant leather development officer in the department ofveterinary services, says China is the biggest importer of Kenyanleather, buying some Sh2 billion of wet blue, or the hides thathave been part processed but not yet turned into finished leather.(The term refers to the light blue colour caused by adding chromesalts during the tanning process.)
That's about half of the total revenue generated by the industry.Almost all exports are wet blue, however, and he says Kenya needs apartner to help it boost its capacity to produce high qualityfinished leather.
"The market requires goods to be finished in a certain way andwe need to learn how to do that."
Kenya's northern neighbour, Ethiopia, is already getting greatervalue out of its leather industry thanks to strong contacts withlong established leather experts in Italy. It now exports a greaterproportion of finished leather.
Mr Malala is looking into establishing partnerships with a Chineseor Indian company to achieve the same feat. There is some hope forgovernment support. The leather industry has been identified as animportant sector under the government's economic recovery strategy,as well as the Strategic Recovery for Agriculture (SRA) and theVision 2030 plan.
Important commodity
"There wasn't much focus on it before but now they haverealised it's an important commodity to develop."
During a break in the leather class, Ms Gitau says she plans toreport home on the need to bring Chinese expertise to Kenya toimprove leather processing techniques. Kenya may need to shift intohigher value processing before Chinese firms seize on theopportunity.
China's leather industry is currently going through tough times.Beijing wants to limit leather processing because of its largeimpact on the environment and has reduced tax rebates on leatherexports.