The Italian tanning industry starts up again after the difficult 2020, even if the first half of 2021 is not enough to erase the deep wounds inflicted by the pandemic: in one year almost a billion of production was “burned” (down 23% to 3.5 billion euros) and exports (down 25% to 2.5 billion euros). The only segment that has held up at Covid is that of upholstery leathers, and is explained by the renewed attention to the home.
Production and export in recovery
But now in the Veneto, Tuscan, Campania and Lombardy tanning districts the calm is returning and the sector, driven by the demand still arriving from furniture, is back on track: in the first half of the year, production grew by 20.7% in volume, turnover increased by 25.3%, exports rose by 28%. Double-digit increases that, however, leave the Italian tanning industry, leader in Europe, still far from pre-Covid levels. The gap to be filled is 10.4% in volumes, 15.5% in turnover and 16% in exports.
Loading…
The new export map
“The sector appears to be on track to recover pre-Covid levels in not excessively long times – says Unic, the National Tanning Industry Union that prepared the estimates – even if there is still no strong positive trend capable of involving all segments and production districts “. And there is also a generalized trend in exports: China (including Hong Kong), the first foreign market for almost 30 years, marks + 39% in the first half of 2021 but remains 25% away from pre-Covid values, and the same dynamic applies to European countries. The only exceptions are Vietnam (second foreign market for Italian leathers), the United States and emerging Mexico, countries that have already recovered the levels prior to the pandemic: on the first half of 2019 they respectively recorded + 16%, + 3% and + 42%.
A real locomotive is not seen in the individual production sectors: apart from the growth of leathers for furniture, the recovery is only partial for leather goods and, above all, for the automotive sector, hampered by production stops due to the lack of semiconductors. Even the shoe, albeit on the rise in 2020, remains the sector most in difficulty. On the leather front, the bovine and sheep ones are better, while the goats fall.
The rise in the price of raw hides and chemicals
In this picture, which still shows patches of black and gray, the uncontrolled increase in raw materials now looms, not only raw hides but also chemicals, which grew on average by 25% from January to June 2021. “This upward trend, not being accompanied by a widespread and convinced recovery of demand and consumption – Unic states – could severely inhibit the pace and intensity of the recovery, with very serious consequences in terms of the financial sustainability of the sector ».