This week: The market for hides and skins has not been too good over the last week. This is no surprise, as a large part of the world was closed for New Year, leaving only a few in Asia involved in the business at all.

Even though forecasts for the year 2025 have been published in almost all the media, the market for leather and the demand for hides are of course not taken into account. This would probably not be a particularly optimistic forecast either.

In most sectors that use leather, the forecasts for the coming months are rather grey and foggy. If the assumptions are correct, this means that the importance of regular sales will probably take precedence over price. This also means that the position of suppliers of raw hides will be assessed differently depending on their function and that leather demand will no longer be the sole parameter for assessing the market.

The only thing that can be said for the past week is that there was still isolated demand from China, initially aimed at finding ‘special offers’. If there were none, much of the demand disappeared and the little that was left was at least willing to pay the prices of mid-December. In combination with the firmer US dollar, this meant that at least a small step forward could be made in terms of revenues, without this indicating a turnaround in the general market situation.

The kill: There is no need to comment on the kill, as production was rather random due to the holidays and very low over all. There is much to suggest that lower numbers are to be expected in the coming weeks and that slaughter will now return to normal after recent highs.

What we expect: In many parts of Europe, production will only resume in the course of this week. Raw material requirements for this period have already been covered and the next discussions about prices will probably not start for another two weeks. Until then, the focus will remain on the markets in Asia and it will be interesting to see what strategy the tanners in China in particular are planning for production after their New Year celebrations in late January and early February. How much optimism they are likely to have for further economic development and consumption remains to be seen. There is a lot to be said for waiting for the new president to be sworn in in the US and then finding out in the following weeks what tariffs and burdens international free trade will have to deal with. But perhaps everything will turn out quite differently. It certainly won’t be boring.

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