What happened this week: The week was determined by spot trades. From Monday to Wednesday activity was almost non existent. Not a surprise due to the holidays in Asia. In Europe most buyers seemed to have bought their immediate needs during the Bologna fair. Thursday and Friday activity became a bit more lively and some spot deals to fill production holes or short covering by traders took place. The patchy interest covered all grades except ox/h. So a few bulls, cows and low grades were sold. If one wanted to find any particular interest it was definitely on the low grades. With exception of the bulls the interest came exclusively from Asia again. Tanners in Italy which had been the driving force behind the flurry of optimism of last week became dormant again and some people claimed even, that they have lowered their bids back to the pre Linea Pelle level. The US$ had a nice ride and lost almost 3 % by midweek before closing the week basically on the level where it started. The

pattern of the market remained again in the boring but solid trading range we see now for a long time. Since supply and demand remain in reasonable balance and the US market continues to show also no sign of a turn around yet, were asking and selling prices once again pretty much unchanged. Attempts to increase selling levels remained still ignored. Rumours about existing inventories, in particular for good quality heavy bull hides, seem to have as little importance as rumours about shortages for lighter weights. Neither sellers nor buyers find still any realistic chance to move the market in their direction at the moment. At least for the main grades. Specialty products and niches are excluded. Leather demand seems to remain normal but not equally spread between the tanneries. In the same field, some are very busy, while others complain about orders and prices. None of the leather sectors is at present showing any special dominance to the others and all seem to be similarly good or bad - as one wishes. Most Overseas retailers report strong sales in the first quarter so that at

least no  big stocks of finished products could hinder their purchasing and ordering for the second half of the year.  Germany excluded. The kill: The kill remained steady on the seasonal lower level. The expectations for an increase of production due to imported live cattle from the new EU member states did not materialize. Price of live cattle has increased and consequently quite reverse slaughterhouses in the new states find it difficult to buy animals what has led even to a declined production in their countries. For the next week we have no indication for a change.    What do we expect: Next week we have to wait for the development in Asia. For Europe we expect only further spot sales. Prices should continue to sidestep with an underlying strength, due to the lower slaughter. As long as this is compensated by higher kills in the USA and no existing short positions need to be filled , this situation should continue to paralyze the market. For the short term it should keep the prices still well under control. However, specualtive tensions are growing and are always good for surprises. Under normal circumstances the existing range could remain still intact for a while.