2014: Brazil’s leather exports hit a record $2.9bn
Total export volumes and values for Brazil in 2014 have been revealed, and they show that the country’s plan to add more value on home soil by exporting skins at a finished or crust stage rather than wet blue are starting to come to fruition.
A total of 34.3 million hides were exported in 2014, 3% less than the volume exported in 2013 – 35.5 million, which was a record.
However, the value of these hides reached a record $2.9 billion, 18% higher than the previous record, $2.5 billion, achieved in 2013.
The volume of exported wet blue hides by volume fell 13% to $15.7 million, while its value rose 11% to $925 million.
The volume of crust rose 20% to 3.2 million hides (worth $155 million, 13% more than 2013), while the volume of exported finished leather increased 6% to 15 million hides, worth $1.6 million – 18% more than the year before.
At the start of 2013, the country’s exports of wet blue increased as a proportion of all leather (18 million wet blue hides were exported compared with 14 million finished). The volumes have now levelled out.
José Fernando Bello, president of industry association CICB, said at the start of last year: “Wet blue is a commodity, although in recent times, there has been high demand for Brazilian wet blue and tanners have been able to make a good profit on it. Our project is to make finished leather and we expect Brazil’s tanneries to export more and more finished leather.”
From the latest figures, it appears the project is yielding results.
