Leather Pipeline: Currency losses, shipment frustration and confusion reign
Tanners at the India International Leather Fair in Chennai last week expressed that recent currency fluctuations are playing havoc with business, according to our Leather Pipeline report this week.
Many Indian tanners buy material and components based on the US dollar and sell their products into the European Union, and most had not hedged against the fluctuations.
Elsewhere, our author has been digging deep into the US’s West Coast Port strikes, as they are delaying shipments of hides and disrupting the pipeline.
Further questions are raised about the bovine market and why official figures seem so far away fromm people’s experiences on the ground.
“Tanners do not seem to be too concerned about possible price rises after the Chinese New Year, otherwise they would be opening letters of credits much quicker and would be pushing shippers much harder to get raw material on the boats to arrive rather sooner than later in Asia. We are hearing quite reverse,” the author says.
Log into our Market Info page to read the report in full. You will also find a perspective on the market from the US and the situation from Germany.
