The Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Leather and Science Technology (NILEST) in Zaria, Kaduna State, Prof. Muhammad Yakubu, has said the nation’s total exports of leather products hit $800 million this year.

Yakubu stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Abuja.

 He recalled that in 2018 and 2019, the exports of Nigerian leather products were about $800 million but later declined in 2020 due to COVID-19 epidemic to $650 million.

 “The national leather policy proposes that by the Year 2025, revenue from the leather products exports will be around $1 billion,” Yakubu said.

 According to him, by the figure, Nigeria has crossed half of $650 million to $800 million this year.

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 The director general said the total trade of the leather products was between $300 and $400 billion globally.

He added that out of this figure, Nigeria could account for 15 to 20 per cent to hit $20 billion by 2025.

 Yakubu said: “Every week, more than 20,000 pairs of shoes and different high quality leather materials were exported to African, Asian and European countries from the Southeast, the Southwest and the North.

“You can imagine how much we are talking about in a month or a year.”

 But Yakubu said the high cost of imported processing materials was responsible for the spike in the prices of most Nigerian leather products compared to the foreign ones.

 “For instance, now you can get a leather of one square metre costing about $5. But by the time you add up production costs, the cost of processing may rise to about $30.

 “So, you may end up buying imported leather rather than buying leather processing materials,” he said