US hide exports down in 2018, but China no worse than other markets
20/03/2019
These figures represent an overall decline in volume compared to 2017 of 9.4%. Wet salted volumes were down by 7% but the decline in shipments of wet blue was much steeper at 19%.
In terms of value, hide exports brought in an overall total of just under $1.6 billion, with almost $1.1 billion coming from wet salted hides and a little under $500 million from wet blue.
This means export revenues were down by 21.5%. There was a 25.8% downturn in revenues from wet salted hide exports and a 13% drop in the money coming in from wet blue shipments.
According to the USHSLA figures on their own, it would be difficult to argue that the trade dispute between the US and China had a big impact in hide trading in 2018 because, although overall hide exports from the US to China were down by 15.8% in volume and by 30.2% in value, the decline appears, on the face of it, to be little worse than those in other key markets such as South Korea for wet salted and Italy for wet blue.
The Chinese government wanted to put an extra 10% on existing tariffs on imports of hides from the US as part of its response to increased tariffs on Chinese exports to the US. However, the China Leather Industry Association persuaded the government in Beijing to increase tariffs by 5% instead, an increase, it has argued, that has been largely offset by lower prices.
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