Price of rawhide low; small traders facing loss

Price of rawhide has fallen sharply causing immense loss to the small traders during this Eid-ul-Azha.

Rawhides were traded at very low prices in Dhaka's Hazaribagh, one of the country's major tannery hubs, on the day of Eid-ul-Azha.

The cowhides were sold at Tk 350 to Tk 400 on average and those of goats were sold at only Tk 25 to Tk 30. Whereas, in the last year, the prices of cowhides and goat hides were around Tk 1,000 and Tk 50 respectively.

The small traders, who individually bought hides from across the city, were not getting even the price they paid to buy the hides, many traders told The Daily Star correspondent.

One of the traders, Shah Alam, said that he bought 43 rawhides of cow paying Tk 600-700 per piece on average, but now at Hazaribagh he was not even getting Tk 500 per hide, he said.

Last year, he made Tk 7,000 in profit from 48 hides, but this year he is facing massive loss, he added.

When asked about the low prices, one of the buyers, Nasir Uddin Suman, said there is enough stock of rawhide in the market, and the prices at the international market has also fallen significantly.

"Earlier, the price of per square feet of hide used to be around $1, but now the prices have fallen to around 60 cents only," he added.