Sector

Leather & Leather Goods

Raw hide to finished glove inside one country, across roughly 675 tanneries — with the environmental infrastructure European brands audit for.

Finished leather hides fanned out in tan, grey and black

~675: tanneries across three clusters
$659m: leather articles & travel goods, 2024
Duty-free: into the EU under GSP+

Why buyers source here

The whole chain, domestically
Hides, tanning, finishing and manufacture all sit inside Pakistan. You can buy wet-blue, finished leather or a completed glove from the same country — and often the same group.
A world position in gloves
Industrial safety, motorcycle, sports and dress gloves are a category where Pakistani makers compete on skill, not only price. Sialkot has been doing it for a century.
Environmental infrastructure that is being built, not promised
The Sialkot Tannery Zone is relocating 350-plus tanneries into a single compliant zone with shared effluent treatment — the groundwork for cluster-wide LWG-standard capacity.
European duty advantage
GSP+ puts most leather goods into the EU duty and quota free, which is worth real money on a category where duties are otherwise significant.

Leather is one of the few categories where Pakistan offers the entire chain domestically. Hides are sourced here, tanned here, finished here and turned into gloves, garments, footwear and goods here — across roughly 675 tanneries in three clusters: around 275 in Kasur, 250 in Sialkot and 150 in Karachi. Exports of leather articles and travel goods were about $659 million in 2024.

For a buyer that integration is the commercial point. You can source wet-blue for your own finishing, buy finished leather to a specification, or place a complete glove or garment programme — without adding a country to your chain at each step. It also means a supplier can usually answer questions about the hide, not just the product.

Gloves are the category to know about

Sialkot has made leather gloves for a century, and it shows in the parts of the product that are hard to industrialise: cut, seam placement, fit across sizes, and consistency at volume. Industrial safety, motorcycle, sports and dress gloves are all made here at scale, and this is a category where Pakistani manufacturers win on capability rather than on price alone.

The compliance question, answered directly

Any experienced leather buyer's first question is environmental, and it should be. The honest answer is that Pakistan's tanning base is mid-transition: the leading tanneries hold Leather Working Group ratings and ISO 14001 and are audited routinely, while a long tail does not. What has changed is that the infrastructure is being built rather than talked about — the Sialkot Tannery Zone is relocating over 350 scattered tanneries into a single zone with shared effluent treatment, which is the only realistic route to a cluster-wide standard.

Ask for the LWG rating and its date. The tanneries worth your time will send it before you finish the sentence.

That is exactly the kind of question a verified supplier record should answer before you ask it. Al-Ukaz reviews companies at the company level and checks documents against their issuer, so a buyer can tell the audited tannery from the unaudited one without a site visit.

One note on the figures above. Published estimates of leather's share of GDP range from about 4 to 5 percent, and employment estimates run from 200,000 to 300,000 depending on whether informal units are counted. We have given the ranges rather than the flattering ends; the export numbers are firmer.

What Pakistan makes

Gloves: Industrial safety, motorcycle, sports and dress gloves. One of Pakistan's genuinely leading categories.
Garments: Jackets, coats and motorcycle apparel, largely from Kasur and Sialkot.
Tanned leather: Wet-blue, crust and finished cow, buffalo, goat and sheep leather, sold on its own or as the input to your own programme.
Footwear & goods: Shoe uppers and finished footwear, bags, wallets, belts and travel goods.

Where it is made

Sialkot: Roughly 250 tanneries alongside the gloves and sports-leather trade the city is known for worldwide.
Kasur: Around 275 tanneries and the country's largest processing base, strong in wet-blue and crust.
Karachi: About 150 tanneries, plus garments, footwear and the export gateway.
Lahore & Multan: Finishing, goods manufacture and a share of the garment trade.

Standards this sector works to

What to ask for when you qualify a supplier in this category, and what an established exporter will already hold. Al-Ukaz checks these against the issuing body rather than taking an upload on trust.

Leather Working Group (LWG)
The environmental audit European brands gate on. Ask for the rating and its date — the better tanneries lead with it.
REACH compliance
EU limits on chromium VI, azo dyes and restricted substances in the finished article.
ISO 14001
Environmental management — effluent, chemical handling, waste.
Traceability of hides
Back to the slaughterhouse where your due-diligence policy requires it.
SEDEX / SMETA
Social audit, held by the units serving European brands.

Sourcing leather & leather goods from Pakistan?

Tell us what you are looking for — category, volumes, the certifications you need — and we will point you at verified manufacturers who can serve it. Al-Ukaz operates under the endorsement of the Ministry of Commerce, Government of Pakistan.

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Sources

Figures are as reported at the dates given and are provisional where the underlying series is. Where published estimates differ, the range is stated in the text.