THE NEW PAPER (Singapore) 29 December 09 Tougher than leather (Ho Lian-Yi)
Jumping on a ferocious predator and tying it up is just an ordinary part of a crocodile farmer’s work.
But right now, Mr Robin Lee, 34, manager of Long Kuan Hung Crocodile Farm in Kranji, must wrestle with something even bigger – the recession.
“The price of crocodile skins have gone down 20 to 30 per cent over the last six months,” he said.
As incomes fell, even the rich have had to tighten their crocodile hide belts. That meant fewer buyers for super-costly exotic skin products.
A large, good-quality skin can fetch $1,000.
In the US, crocodile farmers have been floored by the collapse in price.
The New York Times recently reported that Louisiana farmers, who produce most of the world’s alligator skins, did not collect a single egg from the wild this year because they didn’t want to rear more alligators than needed.
Last year, they collected 500,000. Some of the smaller US farms will not survive the recession, reported NYT.
But Mr Lee, who has worked on his father’s crocodile farm since he was 20, said the business is still sustainable.
The farm, which is about the size of 12 football fields, houses nearly 9,000 crocodiles – nearly all of the saltwater variety.
Though the price of skin has fallen, his sales have remained largely constant.
Long Kuan Hung also sells crocodile meat, which has seen sales increase to 1,500kg a month from 1,000kg two years ago.
It is the sole supplier of crocodile meat here.
Mr Lee said the farm sells about 1,000 skins a year, mostly to Europe and Japan.
That output makes up just a trickle in the flow of crocodile and alligator skins that comes in and out of Singapore.
Every year, some 250,000 skins from all over the world pass through Heng Long International alone.
The listed Singapore company is one of the five largest crocodile skin tanneries in the world.
Heng Long managing director Mr Koh Chon Tong, 58, said: “Singapore is a major player in the global trade.”
His factory is one of two “independent” tanneries among the five big ones, he said. There is another that is based in France. Hermes owns two and Gucci owns the remaining one, he said.
The recession has also taken a bite out of Heng Long’s business. Its revenue for the first nine months of this year fell to $23.8 million compared to $53.9 million for the same period last year.
But there are signs that the global luxury goods market is stabilising as it saw its revenue go up to $8.2 million in the third quarter of this year from $7.9 million in the second quarter.
Mr Koh dismissed allegations by farmers in the NYT report that certain players in the European fashion business were deliberating suppressing the price of the raw product.
Mr Koh’s younger brother, Mr Koh Choon Heong, a director in Heng Long, pointed out that the “doom and gloom is mainly an American phenomenon”.
The skins of the alligators that are farmed in the US are used mostly for luxury watchbands – of which sales have taken an unusually heavy beating in the market.
Before this, a series of good years had prompted farmers there to expand production, which is why the sudden shrinkage in business hit them so hard, said the younger Mr Koh.
“But I think they’ll bounce back,” he said.
While demand for watch straps has slowed, the younger Mr Koh said demand for top branded crocodile-skin handbags – which can fetch tens of thousands of dollars – is still strong.
Mr Leonard Kwan, 58, the president of Singapore luxury handbag brand, Kwanpen, which sells crocodile and other exotic skin products, agreed.
He said: “I think Singapore is holding itself up very well. We have not really been affected by the recession.”
After a sale last December, he said he has cleared his old stock and has new models coming up in competitive prices.
Kwanpen’s best selling handbags go for between $4,000 and $6,000, he said.
In fact, he said total sales have gone up five per cent, thanks to the opening of three new stores in Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore last year.
Tougher than leather

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