What happened this week: First of all we would to wish all our readers a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Not a surprise, that neither the Christmas week nor this week brought activity of any significance. Most operations in Europe are closed until next week and also from overseas activity could be neglected. So, the few sales were more coincidental rather than programmed or of any mentionable volume. Patchy loads and containers were concluded and prices were more depending on the daily USD rate rather than determined by the market. So, sales concentrated merely on cows, ox/heifers and low grades into the Middle East and the Orient. With most other markets such as the Southern hemisphere as well as the USA also being mostly closed there were also hardly any impulses from any other part of the world.

With the business being relatively slow one had time to study a bit the general influences of the trade. Due to the remaining risk of a war against Iraq, the new problem with North Korea softened the USD. The general strike in Venezuela supported  rising oil prices. Not a particular good short term indicator for the global economy. Xmas sales in Germany and the USA fell behind expectations. The USD lost in a year to year comparison abt. 17 % of its value against the € and abt. 10 % against the Yen. This will weigh on exporters calculations, but as usual have the raw hide prices already made the adjustments in the recent months, so that the net value of the hides has changed accordingly. Many experts believe in a  recovery of the global economy later in the year, but this had been the forecast also in 2002 already. However, it seems, that there are

indeed better chances in 2003 than before. The best outlook seems to be in the emerging markets and here in particular in the Eastern bloc. Also South East Asia and China display still a strong performance. This could support the export business from Europe as the outlook for a domestic recovery is not particularly bright. The kill: Low for the moment. We are desperately waiting now for a normalisation after the Season. Forecasts for the next weeks remain low. Weather conditions with ice in the North and floods in the South are also prohibitive at present.  What do we expect? For the next weeks we still do not expect any major changes. The markets needs to sort itself out after the long break. Plenty of shows (Istanbul, Highpoint, Cologne, Detroit, New York etc.) in the coming weeks have direct or indirect influence on the market. New trends we don’t expect before the second half of January to materialize.