Bangladesh’s leather industry has been struggling to find new investment, even though the government awarded leather ‘Product of the Year’ for FY2017-18.

Leather and leather product exports has fallen dramatically in the current financial year (FY2018–19) compared with the previous, with many tannery owners blaming the lack of product variety as well as a lack of vigilance on the part of the tannery estate for hurting the growth prospects of the sector. It has also been said that the environment at Savar has been badly affected as a result.

According to the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), the sector registered a negative growth rate of 8.69%, resulting in earnings of $837.07 million in the current financial year 2018–19. This figure was $916.74 million during the same period of the previous financial year.