Leather and footwear exporters body CLE on Tuesday sought an extension of the Production-linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for the sector with a view to boost job creation, domestic manufacturing and shipments.

In a pre-budget meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Council for Leather Exports Chairman Rajendra Kumar Jalan also urged the government to provide import duty exemption on wet blue, crust and finished leather.

"Implementation of PLI will lead to structural transformation of the industry and will make the country a major manufacturing hub," Jalan said.

He added that the PLI will provide a major fillip to the domestic and overseas investments in not only capacity modernisation and expansion of existing units but also in start-ups, thereby leading to expansion of the overall production base.

"The benefits of PLI will include an incremental investment of Rs 6,000 crore and an additional employment generation of about 2 million labour workforce, both directly and indirectly," he said.

He added that the import of wet blue, crust and finished leathers during 2022-23 was USD 450.73 million, but the export of value-added products was USD 5.26 billion, which is more than 10 times the value of import.

"Hence, it is requested that the 10 per cent import duty now being levied on wet blue, crust and finished leathers may kindly be removed to increase the price competitiveness of the value-added products segment," Jalan urged.

 Jalan also requested the government to allow the export of all value-added leathers including crust leathers without any export duty.

"This will lead to a quantum jump in the export of value-added leathers by at least USD 1 billion in the next 2-3 years," he said.

Presently, there is a 40 per cent export duty on raw and pickled hides, crust and wet blue leather and 30 per cent on raw buffalo hides.