Brazil’s leather exports generated $544.1 million in the first half of 2026, down 4.9% year on year, according to foreign trade data compiled by the Centre for the Brazilian Tanning Industry (CICB) from Secretariat of Foreign Trade (SECEX) figures. The headline decline tells only part of the story. Beneath it sits a volatile first half \u2014 and signs that the structure of Brazil’s export business is quietly changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The monthly pattern reads like a rollercoaster. Export revenue collapsed 22.9% in January \u2014 a brutal start driven by holiday-adjusted shipment schedules and weak demand \u2014 then fell another 1.1% in February and 7.8% in March. April delivered a marginal 0.6% recovery, May slid back 7.3%, and June finally broke the pattern with a 12.1% surge, the strongest monthly performance of the year. The June rebound was real, but it was not enough to dig the half-year out of the hole dug in the first quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Volumes, notably, held up better than value. Brazil exported 90.8 million square metres of leather from January to June, down only 2.3% \u2014 while exported weight actually increased 6.1%. That combination is the classic signature of a price-driven decline rather than a demand collapse: buyers are still taking Brazilian leather, but they are paying less per square metre. For a commodity-exposed tanning industry, that distinction matters enormously. It suggests competitive pressure and weak pricing power rather than customers walking away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China remained Brazil’s largest leather export destination, accounting for 29.1% of total export revenue and a remarkable 43.9% of exported area. But shipments to China totalled $158.1 million, down 6.8% \u2014 a reminder that the world’s largest tanning base is itself managing through a soft demand cycle. The United States stayed second at $65.1 million, representing 12.0% of exports, with value down a sharper 16.6%. Italy ranked third with $56.8 million (10.4% of revenue), falling 19.2% \u2014 a concerning signal from the traditional premium European market. Vietnam, at $55.6 million and 10.2% share, was the steadiest major buyer, declining just 4.3%. Mexico was one of the few major markets to grow, up 4.3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The more striking movement came at the edges. Export value jumped 138.9% to Malaysia, 80.4% to Indonesia, 53.4% to Cambodia, 38.8% to Spain, 37.2% to Poland and 34.5% to South Korea. In salted hides specifically, exports to Togo surged 513.3%, with Turkey up 246.4% and Nigeria up 30.8%. These markets remain small shares of the total basket, but CICB reads them as evidence of continued diversification \u2014 Brazilian material finding new industrial buyers across Southeast Asia, Africa and secondary European markets as the traditional big four recalibrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The category breakdown is where the structural anxiety lives. Finished leather remained Brazil’s largest export category at $236.8 million \u2014 around 44% of total leather export revenue \u2014 but it also recorded the sharpest decline among major categories: value down 15.2% and exported area down 13.3%, reflecting continued weakness in international demand for higher value-added products. Wet blue, the semi-processed stage that carries less value and more environmental burden, held up better: $142.9 million in exports, down just 2.1% in value and 1.7% in area. Wet blue splits fell 7.5% in value even as exported weight rose 1.4%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That pattern \u2014 semi-processed holding while finished falls \u2014 cuts against a decade of Brazilian strategy aimed at climbing the value chain. Brazil’s tanning industry has invested heavily to move from commodity wet blue toward finished leather for automotive, furniture and footwear brands. When finished demand wobbles harder than commodity demand, the strategic narrative takes a hit even as the shipment numbers survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first half of 2026 confirms Brazil’s position as a volume-resilient, price-sensitive supplier navigating a soft global cycle \u2014 with a June rebound offering the first genuine positive signal of the year, and an emerging-market client list growing beneath the stagnation of the traditional majors. Whether June’s 12.1% marks a turn or a dead-cat bounce will be the question hanging over the second half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source: CICB \/ SECEX via Leather News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brazil’s leather exports fell 4.9% to 544 million dollars in H1 2026, but resilient volumes, a 12.1% June rebound and surging Asian buyers hint at strength.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_georankopt_ai_score":54,"_georankopt_ai_analysis":null,"_georankopt_ai_recommendations":null,"_georankopt_focus_keyword":"","_georankopt_ai_last_analysis":"2026-11-01 09:09:51","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[380,383,424,946,388,949,907,947],"class_list":["post-3188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-brazil-leather-exports","tag-china-leather-imports","tag-cicb","tag-finished-leather","tag-leather-trade-data","tag-secex","tag-tanning-industry","tag-wet-blue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}