6 - 12 December 2001
Issue No.563
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 6 - 12 December 2001 Issue No.563 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
A bitter wish
Beware what you wish for. As Alaa Shahine finds out, opening the door for tanners to export their products may have spelled their ruin
It should have been a busy day in Cairo's tannery area. With Eid just around the corner, the area stretching beyond Magra El-Oyoun, close to Old Cairo, should be buzzing with increased demand for leather goods -- specifically, new shoes. But Osama Zaki was sitting at his small two-floor workshop with nothing to do but drink a small glass of tea. In his depressingly empty workshop, another worker was trying to busy himself by counting and spreading some leather sheets.
"At this time every year, we should be preparing for Eid Al- Fitr [the end-of-Ramadan feast] and maximising our productivity. Normally, we wouldn't have time to talk to you, but now all we have is time to talk," he said with a bitter laugh.
The tanning industry had recently suffered an exorbitant increase in the price of raw leather, which jumped from LE90 only a few months ago to LE220 per sheet of cow leather, and from LE60 to LE150 of buffalo leather. "Such an incredible increase is putting a lot of us out of business," groans Zaki. "We cannot afford the prices of the raw material now. Many workshops have switched their activities to other crafts," he added.
Most insiders attribute the rocketing prices of raw material to the government's removal of restrictions on the amount of leather export to Europe -- something tanners have been demanding for years. But the rapacious demand in Europe for only semi-tanned leather has left those in Egypt who work on the "finishing" of leather products with little to do. Work forces from large factories to small shops are as idle as the expensive equipment.
The Cairo tanneries: old methods of production fail to meet the export challenge photos: Sherif Sonbol
"The Europeans are happy to leave the curing process to us," grumbles Mohamed, another workshop owner, who noted that tanning is "the most polluting" part of the process. "So now they get the leather semi-tanned and finish it in their factories."
From workshop to workshop up and down the narrow and muddy streets and alleyways of the tannery district, the same complaints about the state of the leather industry abound. Nabil Ali, who owns a workshop in the district, explains the dilemma: "We cannot even focus on the domestic market as an alternative to export because shoes and other leather product factories pay on credit and we have to wait for ages to get the money." Ali noted that it can take up to a year to get paid. "We cannot afford this, because we have to pay the raw- leather producers in cash -- especially these days, when the export alternative is all the rage."
Ali singled out the "tycoons" in the business as responsible for the "miserable state of affairs." "They dominate the market," Ali explained. "They have the chance to export their products because it's hard for us to get an exporting licence. I used to have six workers, but due to current financial difficulties, I had to fire four of them," he added, evidently remorseful.
Among the roughly 350 tanning workshops and factories that comprise the tannery district, the so-called tycoons are few and far between. One of them is Antar Salama, who owns a relatively large factory employing 120 workers. "Small-scale producers do not have the capabilities necessary to export," explained Osama Salama, the owner's son. "Their product quality is poor, so when they attempt to export through licensed producers, they harm the reputation of the Egyptian leather industry," he added.
Salama added, however, that only a few years ago, his father and other large producers used to take in products from several smaller producers for export -- so long as they abided by certain criteria regarding quality. "But with the current recession in the local market and the impact of 11 September on world trade, we decided to put our workers first. We have 120 families to take care of," Salama said.
The row over the export of leather goes back to the 1970s, when Egypt used to export shoes and other leather products to the Eastern bloc -- a fringe benefit of strong political ties developed under Gamal Abdel-Nasser. "Business flourished at that time," remembers Mamdouh Mekki, chairman of the Leather Tanning Chamber and the Council of Leather Products.
However, when exportation to the Eastern bloc stopped in the mid-1970s, Egyptian shoemakers found themselves unable to compete for new markets with more sophisticated international producers. "They [the tanneries] did not pay much attention to quality in the days of exporting to the Eastern bloc," says Mekki. "So the tanneries began to focus on the local market." The demand at home was no comparison, however, and could not absorb the high volume of production. Prices dropped, profits went down, and, as Mekki points out, "They stopped paying us on time."
For tanners, the only way out of this predicament was to start exporting leather. The idea was rejected by the government several times, however, on the grounds that the local demand for leather would suffer and, consequently, it would become hard to keep shoe prices down. Tanners shrugged off this argument, pointing out that shoe prices were rocketing despite the ban on leather export. In 1987, the government decided to allow the tanners to export five per cent of their production.
Shoemakers resisted leather export, saying that it would stymie their larger goal of exporting some three million shoes per year. Again, tanners scoffed at the claim, arguing that shoe export has never come close to this figure and the situation is unlikely to change.
Tanning industry members say there are some things that can be done to improve the situation. Mekki argues that one of the main reasons behind the increase in leather prices is that producers of raw leather are not subject to strict monitoring in the slaughter houses. "We boycotted them for a month and a half, and the prices slightly decreased, but even harsher monitoring measures should be implemented by the government," Mekki said. He added that tanners will need to focus on their relationship with shoemakers, to "try and reach a compromise on payment methods."
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page