Khurram Dastagir Khan is the Minister for Commerce of Pakistan. PTA (Pakistan Tanners Association) is the local leather industry association. While the world wonders about the working conditions of Pakistani leather labourers denounced by an Oxfam campaign, Dastagir Khan (who last January 19 inaugurated the International Leather Show in Lahore, in the photo) has announced and promised two immediate actions in support of the industry. Hopefully, these measures will trigger a substantial growth of its exports in the next two years. The Government is committed to cover up to 75% of the costs necessary for laboratory tests that tanners have to support to enable them to meet the standards of tanned products. Secondly, in a move that plays along the line of protectionism, it promised the abatement of 4% of tariffs on the import of raw material and wet blue. A similar action has was applied to cotton. The President of tanners, Zafar Anjum, judged this last speech of extreme urgency “because of the rapid depopulation of the national heritage of cattle and goats, because of the massive recent slaughter. The number of animals has fallen below that of 2006. The tanning industry might experience an alarming future if nothing is done on farms because it takes years to recover.”
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