China Mink Skins Market Review April 2022
In April, Kopenhagen Fur auction house has canceled its scheduled April auction, showing its insight into the fur industry and the challenging environment. Meanwhile, SAGA Fur Auction house has acted responsibly by carrying on the April auction anyway, even it has already predicted the April auction gloomy result in advance. Both auctions have protected prices well, either by stopping the auction or by just holding the prices tightly.
On Saga’ recent announcement, the China mink market mainly caused this situation, so what happened in China in April?
The China economy 2022 1Q
China’s First-quarter GDP rose by 4.8%, and retail sales grew by 3.3% in the first quarter of a year ago. However, retail sales in March fell by more-than-expected 3.5% from a year earlier. The data showed that, within retail sales, the apparel, autos and furniture subcategories still posted declines for the period, Jewelry declined the most and was down by 17.9% in March from a year ago, a 16.4% decline in catering and a 12.7% decline in clothing and shoes followed it.
As one of the potential reasons for underperformed retail sales, the unemployment rate across 31 major Chinese cities rose from 5.4% in February to 6% in March — the highest on record according to official data going back to 2018; the unemployment rate for those from 16 to 24 years old remained far higher at 16% — the highest since August 2020.
The epidemic
China right now is still applying the zero-affection controlling policy, therefore, massive scale locking down keep happening from time to time. Beginning in March, the country has struggled to contain its worst Covid outbreak since the initial phase of the pandemic in 2020. The Covid outbreaks only forced Shanghai and some other cities to enter lockdowns in late March and early April. Therefore, the economic slowdown likely worsened in April.
The fur coat sale in the 2021 season
The total quantity of fur coats sales before the spring festival was around 50% of the number sold in the same period of the year 2020, Fur coat sales in the following 2022 spring festival period wasn’t very promising too, very few customers were shown in the shopping mall, fur coats offline shop sales were hit seriously, online sales were better than the offline sales.
Skins inventory in China
There are still a big number of skins bought in the year 2021 that haven’t been used for the garments, many skins speculators and garments producers, who have bought before 2021 July were in deep loss and can’t sell their skins out because of the sharp price plunging in the second half of 2021, some of them have bought skins with high financial leverage, therefore, selling skins with current market prices will have them bankrupted.
Garments producing in China
Most garments producers haven’t started their producing for this year because of the big garments inventory from previous years, the uncertainties of current economy contraction and epidemic situation.