The Turning Point Of Leather Industry Upgrading In China

After more than 20 years of rapid development, China's leather industry has entered an important turning point: the influence of the national macro-control has increased, the pressure of energy saving and emission reduction has increased, the export trade friction has increased, and the marketing mode has to be adjusted urgently.

From rapid growth to stable development, Zhang Shuhua, chairman of China Leather Association, said that after 20 years of development, the scale of China's leather industry has ranked first in the world.

Last year, the total industrial output value of Enterprises above Designated Size in leather, fur and products industry increased by 20% over the same period last year, but the growth rate dropped by 6% compared with the previous year. The total profits and taxes were 25 billion 800 million yuan, up 20% from the previous year, and the growth rate dropped by 17%.

Experts believe that the slowdown in the growth rate of China's leather industry is mainly related to the reduction of exports of leather goods.

At present, China's leather, fur and products industries accounted for 48% of the export value of the enterprises above Designated Size, while most leather varieties showed a downward trend in recent years.

The export of leather garment industry in China reached the best level in 2003, and has been declining since 2004.

The fur and products industry is also the same. In 2005, exports reached an all-time high level. Last year, the export volume for the first 10 years was the first and the largest decline.

By contrast, the heating up of domestic consumption market has eased some pressure on the leather industry with a relatively high proportion of exports.

Last year, China imported 4 billion 900 million dollars of leather, fur and products, an increase of 19% over the same period last year, an increase of 13 percentage points over the previous year.

In recent years, the import of leather and garment industry in China has maintained a relatively fast growth.

Problems and challenges coexist. China's leather industry has entered a steady development period from high speed growth.

The reason for entering this period is related to the current problems and challenges faced by the leather industry.

The impact of the national macro-control policy.

Since 2005, in order to control "two high and one capital" products and promote the balance of foreign trade, the state has promulgated a series of macro-control policies to restrict exports, involving dozens of tanneries.

Among them, increasing export tariffs, prohibiting the export of raw leather, and canceling the export tax rebates for leather products increased the export cost of enterprises, and the sales channels were sluggish.

The pressure of energy saving and emission reduction is increasing.

After more than 20 years of development, China's leather industry has made significant progress in environmental pollution control in tanning and fur processing.

However, there are still many problems in the leather industry, such as uneven environmental awareness of enterprises, non-standard pollution control environment, inadequate supervision, small enterprises without pollution control capability, and difficulty in promoting cleaner production technology system.

Su Chaoying, Secretary General of the China Leather Association, said that at present, the state has formulated emission standards for water pollutants in leather making and fur industry, and is about to be implemented. When conducting the first national pollution source census, the State Council will focus on the preliminary study on the discharge of leather and fur sewage, and calculate the pollutant discharge coefficient of leather and fur industry pollution sources.

The public opinion tendency with excessive environmental quality has adverse effects on the industry.

With the improvement of global awareness of environmental protection and the intensification of trade competition, since 80s of last century, there has been an increasing trend of environmental public opinion in China and abroad.

In addition, the problems and challenges faced by China's leather industry include the continuous increase of product costs, frequent technical barriers and trade frictions, competition among developing countries, large market share of domestic garment enterprises, excessive concentration of export markets and continuous warming of global climate.

All these need our attention and serious response.

Experts said that China's leather industry has now entered the "turning point" of industrial upgrading, which is an important period for the sustainable development of the industry.

At this stage, China's leather industry should focus on readjust its structure, change its growth mode, deepen reform and technological innovation, and carry out energy conservation and emission reduction in line with the requirements of the state's macro regulation and control.

It is also necessary to timely reflect the impact of the state's macroeconomic regulation and control policies to the relevant government departments. It is suggested that after adjusting the macro policy to a certain extent, it will be treated differently according to the characteristics of the industry and remain relatively stable.

China's leather industry has the comparative advantage of abundant raw materials, perfect industrial chain and low labor force in international competition. However, with the recognition and attention of some countries, the leather industry in Southeast Asia and India has developed rapidly, which has become a competitive trend for our country.

The appropriate policies should be adopted to encourage leather tanning and fur enterprises to pfer to the central and western regions and form a relatively concentrated area. This will not only avoid the pfer of enterprises to foreign countries, but also support the rise of central China, the development of the western region and the strategy of revitalizing the northeast.

Leather enterprises should strengthen innovation, expand marketing methods, and develop broader market space for leather products.

Faced with the changing situation of consumers' acceptance of leather products, leather enterprises should actively develop and seek new market growth points, and change many enterprises' operation methods of integrating production and marketing, separate production and marketing, and improve the market competitiveness through brand building.

Leather enterprises should pay more attention to product innovation so as to meet the needs of consumers' fashion and diversification and constantly seek new growth points.