Market report 10.03.2023

As was to be expected, the market went into a pause mode this week. For the European suppliers with the majority of their customers in Europe, the contracts for the month of March have largely been concluded and therefore the pressure to negotiate on both sides has disappeared for the time being. Most of the goods have been sold as well as bought. At the moment there are no extraordinary stocks of raw material pressing on the sellers’ side and so they are busy cultivating the market and prices. Of course, people are already thinking about the discussions and negotiations at the slaughterhouses as well as in sales for the following months. However, this does not solve the decisive problem, namely how the demand for leather and the demand in the leather industry will develop in the coming months. In the last few months, there were always new arguments and changes that supported prices and demand. On the one hand, there was the market for limesplits, on the other hand, there was the reopening in China, which always led to an improvement in sentiment without leading to a real change in the fundamentals. In the last few weeks, the BSE case in Brazil had to be used then to improve sentiment. In Europe it is hard to believe in a significant change in demand. Neither for the better nor for the worse. The lower kill in January and February compensated for part of the demand problem for the time being. However, with the production now recovering, this must now be thought about again. As long as possible surpluses can flow to other