Bangladesh's leather industry missing out on 80% of its potential

For over a decade, Bangladesh’s leather industry has been unable to breach the $1.0 billion annual export threshold — a ceiling that sector leaders and economists attribute to chronic compliance failures, underinvestment, and systemic inefficiencies. Industry insiders now describe the sector as “trapped in a billion-dollar cage”, with multiple structural and regulatory hurdles preventing it from realising its projected $5 billion export potential by 2030. Key obstacles, experts say, include inadequate infrastructure, failure to meet international environmental and social compliance standards, and poor coordination among government, financiers, tanneries, and workers. Central to the crisis is the incomplete and poorly maintained Savar Tannery Estate — the industry’s designated industrial hub — and its dysfunctional Central Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP), which continues...