Italy is now importing more US wet blue than China
20/07/2017
USHSLA’s numbers for the first five months of 2017 show exports of just over 10 million wet-salted hides, an increase of 19% compared to the same months on 2016; this amounts to more than 1.5 million extra wet-salted hides in the course of the five months. In terms of value, this material brought in $635 million between January and May 2017, an increase of 18% year on year.
As in previous recent USHSLA reports, however, the corresponding picture for wet blue exports is less positive. Fewer hides are leaving the US as wet blue. Between January and May 2017, total shipments of wet blue were just over 2.7 million hides, a fall of 5% compared to the same months in 2016. The export revenues wet blue exports brought in during the first five months of the year in 2017 were $255 million, a decline of 3% compared to the same months last year.
One bright spot for US wet blue exporters is that Italian tanners have increased their appetite for using the material. Italy imported just over one million wet blue hides between January and May 2017, an increase of 36% year on year. Italy is currently taking more US wet blue than China, whose total imports of 965,000 wet blue hides from the US between January and May represent a year-on-year fall of 4%.
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