This week, too, little has changed in the overall picture of the market, at least for us. For the current delivery weeks, the sales have all been made and thus the only slowly rising volumes are largely completely covered. So far so good, and those who are happy with this may have a different view of things than those who are looking further ahead. Basically, there is agreement that the top-level sector will still have sufficient orders and demand to absorb the accruing quantities of high-grade hides, at least for the next few months. As everyone knows, this is only a small part of the total quantity and only concerns suppliers and tanneries that either produce the corresponding raw material or are part of the supply chain to the luxury goods industry. The demand from the automotive sector is also described as normal, which also leads to the fact that confidence is also spread for the raw material that goes into this sector in Europe. However, if one looks realistically at the sector as a whole, it will not escape the attentive observer that this is by no means true for all companies in the same way. If we look at all the major producers together, we estimate that production is noticeably lower than it has been in the past at this time of year. Here, as in all other sectors, there is a big difference between demand and production for different quality levels. For the rest of the leather market in Europe, the confidence that came out of the summer holidays is slowly but steadily giving way to fears. The problems that are burdening everyone in Europe – energy supply and energy costs in combination with other strongly rising costs – make adequate planning and calculations almost impossible. The whole thing mixed with declining consumption makes for a very problematic cocktail. In Asia, the holiday lull slowly but surely came to an end. This meant that there