It may be a move to speculate on the European anti-deforestation regulation. Maybe yes, maybe no. The fact is that India’s Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has announced a major foreign trade liberalisation plan for Finance Bill 2024-25. A plan that considers, in a basket of goods ranging from precious metals to pharmaceuticals, the lowering of duties on the import of hides and skins at different stages of processing: wet white, crust and even finished. Likely, a way to revitalise a sector that is languishing at every latitude due to weak demand. But also, it is safe to assume, a government incentive to enable the country’s tanneries to tap new sources of business on the eve of the implementation of the EUDR (30 December 2024).
Import duties on hides and leathers
Indian observers wonder about the effects of the plan, which reduces duties (as of 24 July) from an average of 10% to zero. Probably, they suppose, the government of newly elected Nerendra Modi intends to provide an assist to large manufacturers, such as Bata India, rather than to small companies. This very element legitimises our supposition. The EUDR, in fact, imposes its own traceability rules on imports of bovine hides at every stage of processing, but not on finished leather products.
Whoever imports a wet blue leather into the EU, to clarify, must perform due diligence as required by the regulation. Those who import a backpack or a pair of leather shoes, on the other hand, do not. Import liberalisation seems the way to make the Indian supply chain a more convenient production hub for those who want to make leather products for the European market, dribbling the burdens of European regulations.
Photos from Shutterstock
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