Internal figures from German leather chemicals firm Lanxess have confirmed that 2006 was a difficult year for the Brazilian leather and footwear industry. Speaking to journalists at FIMEC  in Novo Hamburgo, Fábio Belloti da Fonseca, marketing manager for Lanxess’ Leather Business Unit in Brazil, said the company’s internal statistics suggested a large drop in exports of crust and finished hides last year. Exports of finished hides  fell 24%, whilst the number of semi-finished hides for the external market dropped 12%. Exports of wet blue, on the other hand, rose by 6%.

The figures showed that 44 million head of cattle were slaughtered in 2006, of which 18.8 million were exported as wet blue, 6.4 million as crust and 8.5 million as finished hides. This means the domestic market used 10.3 million Brazilian hides, which represents another alarming decrease compared with 2005 figures of 17.4 million. 

“On the domestic market, the big loser has been the footwear manufacturing sector,” explained Mr Belloti. “Brazilian manufacturers produced 348 million pairs of shoes in 2005, but only 142 million last year. This has led to the loss of at least 6,000 jobs in the footwear sector.”

He went on to say that, although the value of footwear exports from Brazil had increased last year, the total number of pairs exported had fallen 5%.