Over the last 30 months, in Argentina 7,500 plants, manufacturing leather goods and accessories, shut down; as a consequence of that, 70,000 jobs have gone lost. Throughout 2018 first half-year period such haemorrhage did not stop: 70 factories have been definitely closed, and around 3,000 workers are now unemployed. These data, supplied by CIMA, the association of Argentina’s companies actively playing in the leather industry, subsequently reported by Buenos Aires press, are crystal clear: Argentina’s leather goods industry is actually collapsing. A number of negative factors caused this economic crisis. Firstly, a trade liberalisation policy, implemented by Macri’s government, deeply affected the business: because of that, import of leather goods articles increased by 75% in the last two-year period (compared to 2015) and went up by 50% in the last half-year. Furthermore, lower domestic consumption, which dropped by 30% from January to June, along with tax rise and creditors’ claims, also hit the industry. Such scenario “makes whichever production investment unfeasible”, remarked Ariel Aguilar, president of CIMA.
