KARACHI, March 31: Leather garment exporters failed to get orders from world buyers at the Asia Pacific Leather Fair (APLF) held in Hong Kong between March 28 and 30, and against this, leather exporters from Pakistan managed to get substantial orders, particularly from Chinese manufacturers of value-added and finished products of leather.

Fawad Ijaz Khan, founder-chairman of the Pakistan Leather Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PLGMEA), on his return from the APLF said 48 leather exporters displayed their finished leather in the fair’s raw material section and only 10 leather garment exporters participated in the leather products section.

He said participation of Pakistani leather garment exporters in the APLF Hong Kong is decreasing every year while more and more finished leather exporters are displaying their products. Most of the European and American leather garment buyers, he said are purchasing leather garments from China because of lower prices for the same quality of leather garments offered by Pakistani exporters, he added.

Mr Fawad said there was a big participation of leather garment exporters from China and most of the European and American buyers gave orders to the Chinese exporters who were more competitive and were quoting less price for similar products displayed by Pakistani exporters.

He said high production cost in manufacturing leather garments in the country is rendering them uncompetitive in the world market and buyers had been asking Chinese leather garment manufacturers to buy finished leather from Pakistan to meet their orders of leather garments.

He said unless the government comes up with a relief package for leather garment industry which is already submitted to the government, there would be widespread closures in the industry, resulting in massive unemployment. As a result of this, the country will become supplier of leather as leather garment manufacturers will be eliminated.