The rising rupee has impacted leather export earnings during April-July 2007. While export earnings increased by 18.14% to $1036.12 million from $877.04 million, the growth in rupee terms was only 6.02% to Rs 4251.11 crore from Rs 4,009.57 crore during the same period last year, according to data compiled by the Council for Leather Exports (CLE). These figures are based on the data submitted by over 72% of the council members, CLE sources told FE. The official export data from the Kolkata-based Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics hasn?t been published yet.
In dollar terms, export of all leather products have grown. Finished leather exports rose 23.48% to $260.41 million ($210.90 million), leather footwear 19.80% to $336.69 million ($281.03 million), and footwear components 20.46% to 80.76 million ($67.04 million). Even leather garments, have moved up by 3.68% to $98.94 million. In rupee terms it is down by 6.95% to Rs 405.95 crore . In order to promote trade and investment collaborations, CLE plans to organise road shows or ‘investment promotion programmes’ in various countries. The basic objective is to motivate prospective foreign companies to establish wholly-owned manufacturing plants in India, and to explore the possibilities of foreign companies entering into joint ventures or technical collaborations with Indian companies, to manufacture leather and leather products in India.
