Market Report 31.01.2025

What happened this week

As unfortunate as it is, we can make little substantive contribution to the market situation at the moment. On the one hand, the main markets in Asia are on their New Year holidays and this year they actually seem to be serious about their holidays. Apart from the occasional enquiry about deliveries and their processing, we have seen little interest from there. Of course, this is hardly surprising because, to be honest, there are only very limited opportunities to ship to China at the moment. There are always ways and means, but at the moment there is no specific pressure as to why there should be any particular risk for German hides. The situation regarding foot and mouth disease is unchanged. Fortunately, there have been no further confirmed infections since the first and only case. Livestock is still being tested on a large scale and wild animals are still being hunted intensively and samples tested. The big question now is how long it will take for Germany to be considered disease-free again and how and when it will be possible to reach interim solutions with important exporting countries. Regionalisation, which applies within the EU, would be one solution and there are already individual countries that accept this procedure. Unfortunately, these are not the countries that are of great importance to us as export markets. At the moment, we can only hope that no further cases will occur in the coming weeks, so that we can at least assume that this really was just an isolated incident. There is also very little to report on the remaining markets at the moment. It does not appear that the leather factories in Europe are currently receiving additional orders and therefore need to stock up on additional raw materials. Rather the opposite is the case and one gets the feeling that the majority of them are preoccupied with how to further adjust production and capacities to the lower demand or whether there are opportunities to utilise the drums for other purposes and other products. Exceptions always prove the rules, but as a general statement you have to accept this at the moment. Due to the low level of activity and the upcoming new price negotiations with the abattoirs, the official prices are changing little at the moment, without this being interpreted as a true reflection of the market situation. With the exception of heavy, male cattle, there is hardly any possibility of further major price adjustments.