What happened this week: As we had it already various times this summer – history is repeating itself and so last weeks report could have been copied into this one. With just one exception: Buyers were almost exclusively from Asia this week. At the end sales were again very large  and dairy cows were once and again in the focus of the interest. With the strong interest seen all over the summer and the sales effected a reasonable forward position is creating and one has to wonder what is going to happen when the Italians return and find not too many dairy cows left for them. Well, many will say they don’t need them as they have no leather orders and so consequently everyone should be happy. As expected was the attempt to get higher prices in vain, but with the USD climbing to 1,09 and gaining almost 3 % in a week delivered what the market couldn’t and so even steady money was sufficient. Apart from dairy cows also ox/heifers were of interest and patchy sales of low grades to export traders

added to the numbers. Impressive and satisfying was the fact, that also sales on bulls to Asia were effected and obviously some tanners were attracted by the cheap alternatives available in Europe considering the levels other options have reached in the meantime.  So business is very reasonable konowing, that we still operate almost without the European customer base. Apart from the sales and activity most of the excitement in the market came from the news of the cross border expansion of the Danish beef cooperative which has signed an agreement to fill their capacities by collecting also German hides from a central German plant of a meat cooperative. What kind of influences this is going to have in many aspects will be seen in the coming months. For the moment it is in any case going to tighten supplies for the traditional processors – sweet news for the abattoirs and quite the opposite what tanners like to hear in the present market situation. In any case it is probably going to start another phase of restructuring in the business. Apart from this

were most of the general economical news pretty encouraging and the better news from Japan might be another trigger for a recovery in the luxury business – not to speak about the very positive outlook in China and the Eastern bloc. So, at the end a positive prospect for the rest of the year after all the problems in the first half. The kill: Production numbers are moderately improving now. The hot weather is over and the holidays are slowly but surely coming to an end. So we are quite optimistic, that the era of the records lows should be behind us. Not that we expect massive numbers to come, but hopefully a bit easier times as far as the availabilities are concerned. What do we expect?  Next week most tanners will return, but they will use the week to sort things out after their holidays. The week after many will watch the news from the Shanghai Fair and the trade will be in Asia. So, we believe that business will be limited except the regular program sales which should be more than sufficient  to move enough product. The undertone is now a firm steady for cows and firmer for bulls. By how much we will know soon.