Exports of US wet blue to Italy continue to rise
17/08/2017
The figures for the first six months of 2017 confirmed that the growth is coming from shipments of wet salted hides. Over the period, the US shipped 12.2 million wet salted hides to tanners around the world, bringing in revenues of $760.6 million. This represents growth of 21% in volume and of 18% in value year on year.
In contrast, exports of wet blue continue to fall. Between January and June 2017, traders and tanners from the US exported 3.2 million wet blue hides, bringing in $302.8 million. These figures represent declines of 4% in volume and of 3% in value.
As in recent months, Italy offers wet blue tanners in the US some good news because shipments of US wet blue to the lucrative Italian market have gone up substantially. In the first half of this year, Italian tanners bought more than 1.2 million US wet blue hides, with a combined value of $118 million, growth of 43% in volume and of 40% in value.
These figures also confirm Italy’s status as the most important market in the world for US wet blue at the moment, taking almost 40% of the total, which surpasses China’s 35% share.
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