After long weeks in which little happened apart from the routine with regular customers with long-term delivery programs, market activity picked up significantly this week. Many enquiries were received, especially from Asia, and not only from China. All other sales markets also enquired about offers and prices. It would not be worth mentioning if it had not been so quiet for so long. However, we call it normality until now and not necessarily any special signal. However, we can say that with the recovery of demand and the return of especially the Chinese tanners to the market, the confidence that the long period of uncertainty for sellers has come to a momentary end. However, the question is still open at the moment whether this also reflects a recovery in leather demand. Only the next few weeks will be able to answer this question, and especially the impressions and reports from next week’s Lineapelle will play an important role. At the moment, it still seems that in most cases it is a combination of relatively low prices and restocking rather than a sudden improvement in demand for leather in general. It is true, however, that a good part of Chinese export leather production has moved out of China to many other countries and they are now certainly trying to recapture this market share. Of course, this cannot be done without raw material and since the delivery time from purchase to arrival takes two to three months, there was not much time to lose. However, the hides sold do not at the same time mean the corresponding increase in leather

demand. In this respect, one can only hope that domestic demand for leather consumer goods in China will recover quickly and significantly after the end of the restrictions, so that local demand can compensate for the possible export losses to a good extent, so that leather sales would be secured accordingly. In any case, the continuing impressive demand for raw material from the collagen and gelatine sector is also helping at the moment. This also applies to China. It is easy to see that demand from there is clearly driven by revenues in the sector. Either the hide is so cheap that almost all of it can be used for this purpose or the revenues from the split and the by-products reduce the cost of goods for leather so significantly that the risk is considerably reduced. Sales this week were again not particularly impressive. On the one hand, because there was no agreement on prices, or on the other hand, because it was a matter of hide types, which one would like to discuss with regular customers in Europe next week before thinking about overseas business, which is much more time-consuming to process. So only sales in low grades or in isolated heavier categories that promise a good split return made sense. Prices could be raised marginally.

The kill

The kill dropped significantly again and is certainly due to the approaching carnival week. We also expect reduced numbers next week and only then can we expect an improvement or normalisation.

What do we expect

The sellers, and thus of course the slaughter industry, are slowly gaining confidence. A still relatively low kill, stable demand for the better European raw material and the trade fair next week will not cause anyone to expect major sales problems at first. The usual reflex is to raise the asking prices first and that promises very intensive talks with the tanners in Milan next week. Whether one does oneself a favour in the long run to turn the price screw in the current environment will only be decided later and for the time being one will have to wait for the personal meetings and their results next week.