Mixed reactions

The Australian spokesman for the 18 companies at the show stated that it was the best fair they had attended in the past several years. Conversely, speaking for US traders in general, one source said that hides were difficult to sell at asking prices and they might have to come down. One thing is for sure, Chinese tanners are not having an easy time of it at the moment. Most of the big brands are refusing to accept higher prices to take the increased VAT and other taxes into account and are threatening to take their business elsewhere. The reality is that there is simply not enough tanning capacity elsewhere for all the customers to take all their business away. Nevertheless,it will help to bolster growth in the tanning industries of other countries such as India and Vietnam but although Vietnam currently has three big tanneries under construction, these things cannot be accomplished overnight. And talking about new tanneries, construction began in September on the heralded ‘perfect’ tannery being constructed in Xiamen, China, by ECCO, the famous Danish shoe company. And East Hides were planning to officially open their newly built tannery in Kazakhstan at the end of the same month. This is their second tannery in the country and is in the south.They already own a tannery in northern Kazakhstan. During the ACLE, Xu Yong, honorary chairman of the China Leather Industries Association, announced that new environmental regulations are being enforced from October 1. He said that the five-year plan called for a reduction of 20% in energy and 10% in pollution per unit of GDP. China also favours the establishment of tannery clusters which will allow central control of wastewater treatment. Other topics of conversation at the show included the Irving/Prime merger and said that Irving production had been moved to Chennai, India, and there was talk about shutting Prime’s Maine tannery and moving production across to Irving’s plant. From Shanghai to Paris and the first International Leather Forum was held under the auspices of the IULTCS.Eighty representatives of a diverse range of leather industry interests came together to discuss education and research, marketing and communication. If the leather industry is to survive long term we need to train the younger generations in an effective manner by getting the industry more involved to ensure that the educational material is relevant. Another matter of great concern is the duplication of research efforts which is both wasteful and costly. Effective marketing is less easy to accomplish as a joint undertaking because each company needs to be able to convince customers that their product is better than others in the market. Despite this I have seen some excellent promotional efforts such as Italy’s vegetable leather campaigns and the US alligator displays at airports. However,in times of crisis (such as with animal diseases and activists with dishonest political agendas) there is a real need for concerted positive communication. I liked the extremes of crisis management: deny there is a crisis and refuse to make any comments or admit that there is and act swiftly and decisively. The following day saw the opening of Le Cuir A Paris which was described in the latest Hidenet market report as being the place ‘where a reasonable number of highly focused firms gathered to concentrate on cutting edge trends in leather and leather products. It was anyone’s guess just what will come out of this event, but it was said that the energy was positive and sampling was as good as in recent years there.’