The government is all set to conduct a study on the fixing of rawhide prices and the skin buy-and-sale process to ensure rational rates during Eid-ul-Azha.
The mechanism is aimed at avoiding the repeat of a debacle in the prices of the skins of sacrificial animals this year, officials said.
Commerce ministry on November 06 gave the green light to this end, according to the proposal of an Export Competitiveness for Jobs (EC4J) project.
"We're considering fixing fair prices of rawhide to satisfy both animal owners and traders during Eid," said earlier commerce ministry additional secretary Md Obaidul Azam, also EC4J project director.
Cooperation might be sought from the Sector Competitiveness Advisory project implemented by the International Finance Corporation to do the study upon ministry's approval, said an official document.
The prices of salted/non-salted skins were fixed in the previous years.
The rates of such hide will be fixed separately and money supply be ensured for seasonal merchants and others, according to a source.
Earlier on August 28, commerce minister Tipu Munshi told the media at his secretariat office, "We've learned from this year's poor rawhide prices during the last Eid festival."
"We're going to take steps to make sure that hides are bought and sold at fair rates from the next Eid-ul-Azha festival," he said.
Thousands of pieces of rawhide remained unsold during the last festival.
Having failed to get expected prices, hundreds of people buried their cow, goat and buffalo hides. Others sold them at throwaway rates.
A drastic fall in prices forced rawhide owners and traders in districts like Chattogram, Sylhet, Narayanganj, Tangail, Dhaka, Narsingdi, Khulna and Rajshahi to throw away the hides during the festival.
Cowhide was sold between Tk 100, Tk 200 and Tk 300 a piece this year, whereas usual prices are around Tk 1,500, Tk 2,000 and Tk 3,000 respectively.
Seasonal rawhide traders and tanners blamed a 'syndicate' for this drop in prices as cowhide prices began to fall on the evening of Eid day.
The merchants blamed tanners for the steep fall in prices, alleging that dues from past years forced them to offer low prices or stop buying skins.
