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The Government is trying to remove the export duty on raw leather and the industry has warned them not to do it as the exports are down by 11 per cent which would go down more after this, said the M Rafeeque Ahmed, Chairman, Council of Leather Exports. Talking to reporters, after the meeting of Board of Traders (BOT) held earlier this week, he said, "We have put our demands and suggestions before the MoS Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman where we urged them not to remove the export duty on raw leather." He further said that finished leather which is being exported doesn’t have any interest subvention which should be introduced. However, one of the exporters of leather Senthil Kumar, who is a proprietor of Rathnam Leather, an SME based in Chennai told KNN, that Countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan are giving subsidy to the exporters up to 20 per cent whereas in India we get the subsidy up to 7.3 percent depending on the articles being exported. Ahmed further said that China is coming out as a market where India should allocate the fund of 20 crores to make it a good market. We appreciated the interest subvention which the government has done, he said adding that the industry wsnts DIPP to release the pending funds.