中文India’s Leather Exporters Hail EU Move to Drop Cattle Hides from Deforestation Law
India’s leather and leather-products exporters are welcoming a major regulatory breakthrough in Europe: the removal of cattle hides and leather from the European Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), a change that lifts a heavy compliance burden from Indian suppliers.
In his latest chairman’s column, Ramesh Juneja of the Council for Leather Exports (CLE) revisited the long campaign to keep leather out of the EUDR. As originally drafted, the regulation captured cattle hides and leather under HS codes 4101, 4104 and 4107. That meant Indian suppliers would have been required to provide the geolocation of the plots where cattle were born, reared and slaughtered — an exhaustive traceability obligation — once the law took effect.
CLE took the request to the Government of India, arguing that leather under those HS codes should be dropped from the EUDR because such leather is not derived from deforestation, and because India is itself classified in the “Low Risk” category under the regulation. The effort has now borne fruit. On 20 July, CLE received an email from the Indian Embassy in Brussels confirming that the EU has adopted the delegated act removing certain products — including cattle hides, skins and leather — from the regulation.
The delegated act sets out the rationale clearly. Hides, skins and leather are derived products from cattle. Taking into account the separation of the leather downstream value chain from the meat value chain, the asymmetries in trade flows between meat and hides, and the relatively low economic value of cattle skins and hides compared with meat within overall cattle production, economic operators in the Union have limited leverage to demand the information necessary to comply with Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 from their suppliers. The act therefore deletes the relevant HS codes — ex 4101 (raw hides and skins of cattle), ex 4104 (tanned or crust hides and skins of cattle), and ex 4107 (leather of cattle, further prepared) — from Annex I.
For Indian exporters, the practical impact is substantial. The geolocation and due-diligence requirements that would have touched every hide shipped to Europe are gone, lowering compliance cost and administrative friction for a sector that is among India’s top foreign-exchange earners. It also removes a potential competitive disadvantage against suppliers from other low-risk origins.
The CLE chairman’s note closes by simply asking members to take note — but the significance is larger. A “Low Risk” classification, combined with leather’s formal exclusion, positions Indian tanning and leather-goods exports to defend and grow their European footprint without being penalised for a deforestation risk the industry does not create. For a sector built on responsible, by-product leather, it is a vindication of persistent, evidence-based advocacy.
