Bulletin

In early March huge swaths of land in Northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland were under water, with those areas experiencing their wettest Summer in decades. Australia is a land of drought and flood and that trend which has existed for hundreds of years, stays true today. 

Sooner or later, something will have to give in the leather world, either prices for finished leather and leather goods will have to rise or raw materials will have to fall in value, starting with green prices, or maybe both. Those in the middle have taken up all of the slack over the past two years and there really is nothing left to squeeze out. 

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia would normally have caused a rise in the hide market, but there are so many factors at play at the moment, it is difficult to call what will happen.

The uncertain short-term future of the leather trade in Europe following the Russian invasion of Ukraine has not dampened the ideas of hide traders. The latest hide and skin auctions for March have just taken place across three locations, there have been sharp increases for all weights and selections of hides.

This year is almost a reversal of normal years, one where tanners seemed keen to secure hides during their CNY holiday period, but have backed off from buying to larger extent since their return. 

Trading in early March was reported to have been minimal, with some slight changes to the prices. Basically, it would appear that suppliers are looking to hold firm on prices but, for any volume sales, are willing to concede some ground to conclude business.

For week 10 of 2022, the CICB Brazilian green price indicator has shown there to have been no price change. There was a slight increase in the percentage of hides coming from the areas that supply the better-quality hides, but not enough to change the overall average.

Hide prices across the board from both Northern and Southern regions of Germany remain stable, there has in fact been very little movement for all of 2022 so far. Slaughters remain low and although abattoirs press for higher green hide prices, these demands are consistently rebuffed. 

Generally, the fair in late February in Milan was well-received, with perhaps more business than many had expected. Most of the visitors were from within Europe although there was good attendance from the U.S., where sellers reported good levels of concluded business for wet-blue hides, with grain and drop splits selling well and at increased prices.

This week (w/c Feb 7) has been a much stronger sales week than most expected. South Korean as well as Taiwanese tanners were expected to be in the market, but the reel surprise has been the amount of business concluded with Chinese tanners.