This week: The holiday weeks in Europe are slowly coming to an end. Some of the offices in the leather factories are already occupied again and this has led to much more extensive communication.

At first this was mostly purely administrative and logistical questions and answers, but as last week progressed, people began to take a greater interest in the current conditions in the raw hide market. The number of enquiries increased without the feeling that there was a real need.

As in many years, the weeks before the holidays and during the holiday period are very quiet and, especially in difficult times like the ones we are experiencing at the moment, you are very happy when you do not have to worry about the problems and difficulties of sourcing hides. Of course, there is always the hope of buyers that prices will be cheaper on their return.

In most cases, this has not been the case this year because the sellers and suppliers have simply not changed their prices. This was probably owing to the fact that there were hardly any, or very few, interested parties in the last few weeks and no more interest was expected, even with lower prices.

Many tanners are now saying that sellers have increased their asking prices. This is unsurprising because we are now on the verge of travelling to Asia for the All China Leather Exhibition (September 3-5), and then to Lineapelle and Tanning Tech in Milan (September 17-19), and it is part of the usual routine to want to create a positive mood before the big meetings. Politics.

With regard to the leather business, the response in terms of higher prices is not particularly positive. However, many buyers also realise that if they are not covered with their purchasing contracts until the fairs, they will have a difficult time reaching an agreement with the sellers, especially considering that the tanners are expecting lower prices.

A completely different wind has been blowing from China this week and even though the number of enquiries has increased, the price ideas have decreased to the same extent. This applies in particular to cow hides for the markets in northern China. In the case of bulls, German hides are hardly competitive in Asia at the moment anyway. Because of the low kill this summer, the pressure to sell is somewhat lower, and sellers therefore feel that their position has been strengthened. However, it remains the case that the period up to mid-September offers hardly any real picture of market developments for the coming months.

Prices only changed very slightly for the few sales in recent days and the now significantly weaker US dollar does not make the calculation for export transactions any easier.

The kill: In terms of slaughter, we are still in holiday mode. However, here too, the school holidays in the various federal states are coming to an end week by week, which means that the numbers should slowly increase again. The ongoing unrest and restructuring in the German meat industry are also ensuring that production has not yet really picked up again. Here too, this will probably continue until the second half of September.

What we expect: As things stand, the market will have to settle itself by the end of September. Only surprising, positive changes would be able to change production in Europe for the better. Market impulses can therefore really only come from the markets in the Middle and Far East. It seems rather unlikely that possible positive impulses could actually be enough to bring about a positive price trend again. However, this does not change the fact that the meat industry will do everything in its power to increase revenues from its by-products again. We remain of the opinion that the continuous flow of goods should still stand in the way of overambitious price increases at the moment. The various risks in the leather market have not yet been eliminated, at least in our opinion.

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