This week can confidently be described as a total loss in business.  The holiday week in China and the fact that the European customers  have already completed all their programs and it will take a few weeks until the renewal is due, meant that hardly any activity and movement took place. Of course, the individual trades for smaller quantities, specialties or short-term needs always remain, but this is by no means even remotely a representative quantity that would be sufficient for an overall assessment of the market development. So the situation actually remains unchanged and as we have seen it for many weeks. Officially, the prices do not change at all or only insignificantly, but in our view this only partially reflects the situation. Demand for leather is declining worldwide. This is by no means a situation that affects all markets to the same extent and therefore the individual market assessment may be correspondingly different. The only question then remains on which side of the market one wants or has to orient oneself. One thing seems certain in any case. The balance of supply and demand, which is balanced for the top qualities, becomes worse the further you climb down the stairs. Our luck remains that we move with our goods at least in the upper third of the staircase. As is well known, the automotive business plays an important role in our market. This week you could get a lot of new information about sales and registrations, as well as the market prospects from the media. Where, on the one hand, positive high production and sales for the summer months dominated, on the other hand, it must be conceded that this could not necessarily be seen in the are mainly those who