“There are many challenges ahead of us, from the conditions of the general socio-economic context to technological and regulatory ones, but if we were unable to face them and adapt, we would find ourselves in a condition of competitive disadvantage. This absolutely must not happen and I am sure it will not happen ”. With these words of the president Fabrizio Nuti, Unic – Italian tanneries opened the works of its annual assembly, held today in Pozzuoli, in the frame of the Pelli Experimental Station.
From an economic point of view, the 2022 balance drawn up by the trade association shows that “in the end – says Nuti – overall we managed, as a sector, to limit the damage, closing the year with substantial stability in production volumes and growth of the total value of slightly less than 10 per cent. We have therefore not (yet) managed to return to pre-Covid levels”.
A comment that does not hide the disappointment of having seen, at the end of 2022, “the positive market dynamics that had characterized the first part of the year come to an abrupt end”, also due to the “return of an economic opponent who has not we had to face: inflation – continues the Unic president -. The production drops recorded by the sector as a whole in the second half of 2022 are also having repercussions in this first part of 2023, highlighting a slowdown that is more or less widespread in almost all of our product destinations”.
A “change at the top” in the export ranking is significant. “After more than 30 years, China, with Hong Kong, is no longer the most important foreign destination for our hides, also in terms of the value of the flows. Now in first place we find France and this suggests how our production, our customers, our markets and the elements required by commercial dynamics are partially changing”.