China: Five-year plan for Chinese leather industry

The president of the China Leather Industry Association (CLIA), Madam Zhang Shuhua, has outlined a plan for the Chinese leather industry for the next five years.

She presented a report entitled Accelerating Transformation at the recent CLIA annual conference.

She said that, while levels of production, export trade and investment in the industry are strong at the moment, deep-seated problems remain. She said the leather industry in China had an "urgent mission" to address deep-seated problems of "adjusting its industrial structure" and "accelerating development".

Mapping out an industry five-year plan, she said it was important for Chinese tanners to invest in new technology, manage resources better adn improve their environmental performance if they want to be able to continue to address the needs of the international market.

In the plan, she also mentioned targets for the Chinese leather industry, including maintaining annual growth of 10% in production output and of 5% in export value. In achieving this, the CLIA president said she envisaged the number of operators in the industry reducing and the proportion of output and value created by large enterprises increasing. She said large companies' share of the industry was 49% in 2009, but that this should increase to 55% by 2015. Madam Zhang also said producers should reduce their carbon emissions by 10% a year.