Rajarhat wholesale market in Jashore, the largest trading hub in southwestern Bangladesh for leather and rawhide, is heading into the Eid-ul-Adha season under acute strain as a surge in salt prices, a scarcity of formal credit and a mountain of unpaid tannery bills threaten to depress business, traders say.

The rawhide market normally depends on the festival of sacrifice for the bulk of its annual trade, drawing traders from ten districts of Khulna division and from as far afield as Rajshahi, Pabna, Faridpur and Madaripur. More than 200 warehouses and roughly 2,000 workers operate at the site, which runs a year-round trade but banks on the Eid peak.

This year, however, small and seasonal traders say they are confronting a sharp increase in the cost of salt, the essential curing agent. The price of a sack of salt has climbed by BDT 100, raising preservation costs as government-distributed free salt rarely reaches traders. Instead, religious schools and orphanages that receive the free allocations sell them on the open market, according to small trader Nazrul Islam.

Traders also describe a lack of formal bank lending. Ananda Das, another small trader, said he and his peers were forced to borrow from non-governmental organisations and moneylenders at high interest rates.

“We piece together capital that way, buy hides, and then never get a fair price. We can never trade at the government-fixed price during Eid,” he said.

The government this year has set the rate for salted cowhide in Dhaka at BDT 62 to 67 per square foot, up from BDT 60 to 65 last year; outside the capital, the rate is BDT 57 to 62, against BDT 55 to 60 previously. But wholesale traders and small operators doubt authorities will enforce these rates, citing years of lax monitoring that has routinely left marginal players short-changed.

Compounding the squeeze, warehouse owners say tannery owners owe them millions of taka in overdue payments. Abdul Malek, a Rajarhat wholesaler, said these arrears had drained working capital.

“If we can’t recover what we are owed before Eid, the capital shortage will worsen sharply,” he said.

Market participants warned that the combination of costly inputs, lack of loans and locked-up payments risks depressing hide trading volumes at a time when many depend on the seasonal market for their annual earnings.