Markets. Russian raw hides and finished leather market report. Moscow 4th May 2002

Markets
Russian raw hides and finished leather market report. Moscow 4th May 2002

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In April we saw lower kill figures, lower supply of hides & skins and somewhat higher demand from Europe. As a result prices on the local market went up. Comparatively higher demand for low weight ranges (12-17 kg and 0-12 kg), which existed during March, remained unchanged in April. Again bulls are in favour - we noted higher prices for hides of bulls weighing above 17 kg. There were somewhat higher demand for hides weighing above 25 kg of good selection suitable for heavy leathers production.
Two weeks ago Duma (Russian parliament) declined draft law "On State Regulation of raw hides and skins export" submitted by the Council of Federation of Russia. It was planned to introduce a temporary ban on Russian hide export abroad for 3 years. After this failure Russian leather industry lobby concentrates its efforts on enforcing Russian authorities to tighten regulations concerning footwear and leathergoods import from abroad. During post-soviet period Russian market of raw hides and skins have changed significantly. We remember times when raw cattle hides were bought and sold without any selection being made - the buyer weighed the loaded truck then weighed the same truck without hides and paid agreed per kg price for the balance. Now the price for raw hides widely depends of origin, weight range, selection and other factors. Ten years ago it was important whether the hides come from abattoir or are collected in farms (hides being form abattoirs were supposed to be of better quality). Nowadays we see very small differences between prices of machine flayed abattoir hides and those of hand flayed. We know that sometimes hand flayed hides may be of higher quality than machine flayed ones. One will find better conservation and fewer cuts on hand flayed hides offered by some suppliers. These hides are of higher quality than many abattoirs can offer. We also must note that share of machine flayed hides in Russian market have diminished considerably.
Above mentioned reasons are at the bottom of our decision not to quote machine flayed and hand flayed hides separately in our market reports.

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