Trade

COTANCE Position Statement on the WTO trade round (DDA)
COTANCE Council meeting - Bologna, 20 April 2006

Meeting in Bologna for the COTANCE Spring Council, the representatives of Italy (UNIC), Spain (CEC-FECUR), Germany (VDL), France (FFTM), Sweden (SG), United Kingdom (UK Leather Federation), Netherlands (FNL), Belgium (UNITAN) and Hungary (BCE) reviewed the progress in the current WTO trade negotiations and expressed concern over the risks that the DDA may not yield the expected benefits for the Leather trade & industry.

They call on the sector’s global stakeholders to value the merits of a sectoral trade deal based on the principles conveyed in their COTANCE 2001 Position (see enclosed) and to request their Governments to hammer out in Geneva negotiating modalities that can implement them.

World trade in the leather sector represents US$ 46 billion ranking among the most important internationally traded commodities .

Tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers on imports and exports of the sector’s products constitute an enormous cost handicap for the Leather industry worldwide, consuming resources that could be better allocated in increasing wealth in the Leather industry. They distort adversely global trade flows and interfere critically in the pricing of supplies causing irreparable damage to the Leather industry’s structures in rich and poor nations.

An ambitious tariff liberalisation coupled with an end to export taxes/restrictions on raw materials and intermediate products in mature and emerging markets would bring huge benefits to the leather trade & industry in both developed and developing countries. It would avoid preference erosion for least developed countries as well as provide them a real opportunity to grow.

The European Leather Industry plays a key role in the Global Leather System notably for its leadership in innovation and market development. It has lost 30% of its companies and workforce over the last decade due notably to unfair competition from countries maintaining protectionist barriers preventing access to their markets or excluding their raw material markets from international competition with export taxes/restrictions. Such protectionism equally harms the inclusion in international trade of countries with a less developed leather industry.

Failure to achieve in this WTO Round a firm commitment of trade partners to open up their markets to international competition and to eliminate export taxes/restrictions on raw materials would have significant consequences in the EU leather value chain, its companies and its workforce as well as on the sustainable development of industrial know-how, environmental liability, innovation and R&D that Europe develops benefiting the global leather industry.

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1 Source: FAO, World Trade in
- Hides, Skins, Leather & Footwear US $ 46 billion
- Meat US $ 17 billion
- Sugar US $ 10 billion
- Cotton US $ 7 billion

EU and US leather industries join forces in the WTO Round

Joint Statement

For the elimination of export taxes and export restrictions on raw hides and skins and wet-blue leather and harmonisation of import duties for leather on a global basis

The European and United States leather industries represented by their respective trade associations and related industries, jointly declare their opposition to trade distorting export taxes and export restrictions on hides, skins and wet-blue leathers that are proliferating and causing significant damage to international trade in the sectors.

They also declare that their interest is to achieve the elimination of tariff peaks and high import duties for leather on a global basis through the harmonization and eventual elimination of import barriers that have equally significant trade distorting and trade deviating effects to the detriment of the sustainable development of the trade and industry.

They call on their respective Governments to pursue the rapid elimination of all export and import barriers in bi-lateral and multilateral negotiations that are opened with other trade partners in order to establish free and fair trading conditions for the industry’s products on a global basis.

They claim that export taxes and export restrictions provide leather industry operators in markets implementing them an unfair comparative advantage, distorting competition to the disadvantage of operators in open markets. These unfair trade measures exacerbate price competition, pushing global leather prices below commercially sustainable levels and increasingly driving operators in developed and developing countries out of business.

They understand that the maintenance of tariff peaks and high import duties for leather by a large number of trade partners constitutes a threat to the development of leather markets and of a competitive leather industry.

The signatories of this joint statement understand that it is high time that the international trading community delivers to the leather industry a harmonized set of rules governing the trade of leather by bringing down import duties to almost uniform levels and eliminating all export restricting measures, except for public health and safety reasons.

February 2006

Original signed by :

Confederation of National Associations of Tanners and Dressers of the European Community
Gustavo Gonzalez-Quijano, Secretary General

Leather Industries of America
John L Wittenborn, President

Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America
Peter Mangione, President

American Apparel and Footwear Association
Kevin M Burke, President & CEO

Trade obstacles affecting the EU textile, clothing, leather and footwear sectors 

International Contract for the Supply of raw Hides and Skins

With the support of other EU associations, COTANCE's Italian member UNIC developed a new international contract model for the supply of hides and skins.

This leaner, more modern contract is based on the Vienna International Convention of 1980, which governs the buying and selling of movables. It intends to create new opportunites for developing the market by modernizing the method of barganining, guaranteeing maximum protection to all participants and putting buyers and sellers on equal footing. 

The English/Italian contract is available as a pdf document on UNIC's web site.

For more information : international.contract@unic.it

COTANCE Submission regarding the EU Origin Marking initiative

COTANCE pleads for an EC Origin Marking Regulation applying to the leather value chain that is linked to a compulsory EU composition-labelling Scheme for all consumer articles made typically of leather where the origin of the relevant components is equally identified.

- the development of an origin marking of the sector’s products where relevant and technically feasible, and an origin certification for all imported sector’s products that qualifies their origin by mentioning the relevant value adding steps conferring origin: tanning, crusting, finishing, cutting & sewing or stitching, assembling…

- the extension of the EU Footwear Labelling rules to Leathergoods, and Leather Clothing and Gloves and the obligation to indicate the origin of the component materials.

-> download the whole document