AfricaPress-Tanzania: HIDES and skins dealers have been urged to apply advanced skills when skinning animals meat for leather industries to ensure there are enough raw materials for the leather industries in the country.
The advice was made recently, by President John Magufuli while launching the new Kilimanjaro International Leather Industries, in Moshi, Kilimanjaro region, where he said that the demand
for leather products imply that the leather industries will also need more raw materials of high quality.
“The demand for raw materials in leather factories in the country are high; the number of demands for leather as raw materials will continue to rise due to the fact that the government is mobilizing investors to increase more leather factories in the country; therefore the availability of high quality hides and skin for leather industries is important,” he said.
He added, “The presence of the Kilimanjaro International Leather Industries is a blessing for breeders as it will contribute to the availability of a reliable market for raw hides and skin for breeders who have been disposing off hides and skin due to the lack of a reliable market for the
hides.”
Earlier, the Chairman of the Kilimanjaro International Leather Industries Company Limited, Mr Hosea Kashimba, said the company would be one of the leather industries which would be producing more products, hence the need for more leather.
“Upon completion, the Kilimanjaro Industries is expected to produce 1.2 million pairs of shoes per year, also between 900,000 and 2.1 million shoe soles, about 184,500 other leather articles like bags, belts, wallets and leather jackets,” he said.
He added, “In addition, we will also establish a tannery which will have the capacity to process 13 million square feet of leather a year, of which 60 per cent will be used by the Kilimanjaro National Industries and 40 per cent will be used for other local markets and for exportation,” he noted.
Mr Kashimba, who is also the Director General of the Public Service Social Security Fund (PSSSF), continued to say that, apart for creating more than 3,000 direct jobs and more than 7,000 indirect
ones, the new project would also increase national revenue through various taxes.
The Kilimanjaro International Leather Industries was established by the PSSSF in collaboration with the Tanzania Prisons, been a respond to President Magufuli’s advise to the pension funds to change their mode of investments by investing in more productive which would among other things increase job opportunities in the country
