Namibia is about to build up and open their first leather tanning industrial site. Minister of Industry Tjekero Tweya closely illustrated the plan, its work in progress and prospective outlooks, which aims at developing a number of clusters all around the country. He emphasized the fact that in some towns and regions, in Namibia, they have already started building a few small industrial sites; in contrast, in other cases, they are still considering and assessing some opportunities of cooperation between public and private companies, the so-called PPP, owing to lower available funds to carry out the whole project. Such is the case of leather industry. As reported by Namibian.com.na information website, deputy minister Michael Humavindu cleared up that reduction of financial assets is urging to reconsider the overall organization of manufacturing sites. However, thanks to PPP, they are supposedly due to build up and open a leather-tanning district in the region of Kavango. In addition, one more project, which aims at the opening of a tannery in the town of Tsumeb, is underway.
Kenya’s unrest
In Kenya, they have been spotlighting leather as well: here the government wants to impose a 10% duty on exports of wet-blue and crust. As reported by The Star, a local daily newspaper, Kenya’s members of parliament will soon examine such proposal. Yet, at the same time, some leather industry players already fear an additional downturn in the price of imports of raw hides and skins, in line with a trend that has been going on in the international markets for years. In contrast, they warmly welcomed the announcement, last week on Thursday, made by Henry Rotich, cabinet secretary of the Ministry of the Treasury: they are going to open a new leather goods company in the area of Olkaria, situated to the south of Lake Naivasha. Allegedly, the overall investment amounts to slightly less than 11 million US dollars, about 9.7 million euros.
