The federal government, through the Nigerian Institute of Leather and Science Technology (NILEST) Zaria, is concluding arrangements to establish a N350million tannery in Daura, Katsina State.
The Director-General (DG) of the Institute, Professor Muhammad Kabir Yakubu, disclosed this when he visited the emir of Daura, Dr Farouq Umar Farouq, in his palace on Monday over the development.
He said the institute, which is under the federal ministry of science and technology, has factored the proposal in the 2023 budget.
The DG said he was in Daura with his team to intimate the emir on the issue and also discuss the possibility of using the land already demarcated for the same project but allowed to remain fallow over decades.
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He said if completed, the project would help in providing employment for the youths, improve business opportunities for the hides and skin dealers, improve internally generated revenue for the state as well as serve as a foreign exchange earner for the country.
“Leather and leather products market is worth $394bn in the world. We have a National Leather Products Policy which was inaugurated by the Federal Government in 2018, a steering committee for the implementation of the policy was set up last year and the country aims to reach a $1bn worth of products from the subsector and one of the ways of ensuring that is achieved is to ensure that all our tanneries are fully functional.
“We used to have about 44 tanneries, mostly in Kano, Kaduna and other places, there is none in Katsina despite the fact that the state is one of the leading producers of high-quality hides and skin in the county,” he said.
