Another week comes to an end and it remains the case that business and sales drag along from day to day. The fact remains that we are still far from normal. From meat production to the sale of finished products, somehow production has to be maintained, but with very few exceptions, things are simply not running normally and smoothly anywhere. Everyone is struggling with individual specific problems and in the leather industry the different levels of production and sales are not running in sync at all. While individual business areas – and here it is always the better qualities – are still operating satisfactorily, others have almost come to a standstill. Now it is not a special realisation that the production of leather just unfortunately cannot be concentrated exclusively on individual articles. A tannery has to manage all selections. We therefore hear from many companies that this imbalance, which has existed for a long time already, is getting worse and worse and that the share of  rational and demand-oriented production is therefore shrinking more and more, whereas the stocks of articles not in demand are swelling increasingly. The hope for a quick and fundamental improvement is fading from week to week. If this problem were limited exclusively to the leather industry, one could remain a little more relaxed. Unfortunately, similar or the same problems seem to affect the next stages in the chain up to the consumer. The leather industry is always familiar with such difficulties and there have also been periods in the past when either the better or the worse