What happened this week: The panic grows. Further security buying took place and again it were side and automotive tanners who made the pace. However, for the first time since long also upholstery tanners and even from Italy decided to make sure that something is in the tannery, just in case…………The most benefiting industry from all the problems are certainly the telecommunication companies. Phones are ringing everywhere to understand more about the supply situation and the consequences for the tanning industry. What finally everybody is working out is that we run on a supply gap of easily 200.000 hides per week just considering Europe and the USA at present. With the FaM situation in Europe at present there is little hope for the coming weeks that the kill can increase to acceptable levels and close the gap. Leaves the 1 million USD question will the demand decline and if,  how to

to balance the quantities. With everyone assuming that the leather demand is not declining until the summer nobody seems to have a solution for the problem and hopes that the other is going to need less hides so that they become available for himself. In any case, there is no clear picture anymore in the market and neither there are clear opinions. We continue to believe that the situation is not as good as many think and we feel that furniture leather demand worldwide is rapidly declining. With the next change of the season we would also not be too surprised if we would see many other segments trying to protect against rising leather prices and supply bottlenecks by order reductions. Also the car industry is trying to draw pink pictures for the future but sales and independent forecasts indicate more of the contrary. We don’t want to repeat our concerns about the financial resources but

also this has to be watched more careful than ever. In the meantime sales were good this week and selling prices rose slightly. The 4 % gain of the USD supported as well the market again The kill: The kill declined slightly again. Restriction in transportations had its effect. We would consider the male kill to be at 80 % and the female at about 40  % of normal. What do we expect? The market will also be next week undersupplied. Consequently prices will not come down. In case that there are still tanners who need to fill production gaps they might even have to pay more money. The very firm USD will also support European price levels. We hope to know more about the cull kill on Monday. At least which will be the abattoirs killing. How and when it is finally going to start will still depend on the organisation and if the transport restrictions will allow a normal execution of the program. So, no change at all.