‘American withdrawal from TPP will boost Indian leather exports’

CHENNAI: The United States formally withdrawing from the Trans-pacific Partnership would benefit the domestic leather industry, a top official of industry body Council for Leather Exports said, here, on Tuesday.

“Already the leather exports to US market has been increasing with an year-onyear increase of about 8 per cent as of 2014-15. With the new President Donald Trump withdrawing US from TPP it will benefit our industry in future”, Council for Leather Exports, vice-chairman, p R Aqeel Ahmed told reporters.

Soon after becoming the new President of United States, Donald Trump last week formally withdrew his country out of the Transpacific Partnership by signing an executive action from the negotiating process of the 12-nation trade deal, one of the major international trade initiatives of his predecessor Barack Obama. Responding to a query on how it would benefit the Indian market, Ahmed said compared to the exports made from other Asian markets to US, India holds advantage of witnessing a rise in leather exports as products were well received there.

Giving some statistics on exports, Ahmed said between April-november 2016 period India’s leather exports was about $605 million of which 15.89 per cent was contributed from United States. “Exports to United States grew in 2015-16 but it declined from Europe”, he said.

On the overall domestic exports, he said the shipping of finished leather and leather products which witnessed about 10 per cent decline in 2014-15 has come down 3-4 per cent decline in 2015-16.

Ahmed and senior officals of Council for Leather Exports were here to announce the second edition of the Designers Fair which began on Tuesday.