The reasons why tanners are coping with ports strike pressures
24/02/2015
Delays in shipping times and congestion at container ports may yet take a heavy toll on the global leather sector, but the latest issue of our exclusive Leather Pipeline and Market Intelligence report in Leatherbiz Weekly (February 24) says the situation is not as serious as it might have been.
The report offers a series of reasons, not all of them positive, why the tanning sector appears to have coped so far. These include the fact that the most intense period of the dispute coincided with tanneries in many parts of Asia taking a long holiday for the Lunar New Year.
At the same time, an unfortunate weakness in demand for finished leather in many sectors has meant tanners have come under little pressure to secure new stocks of raw material and have been able to fulfil the orders they have received with hides from other origins. A weak euro has made hides from Europe more affordable, for example.
Raw material suppliers have also been able to wait out the labour dispute without having to worry as much as they might have about stocks of hides accumulating too quickly, putting downward pressure on prices, because slaughter levels have been unusually low too.
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