The Greek fur industry is entering a path of partial recovery after the unexpectedly great success of the 50th anniversary Kastoria International Fur Fair (April 9-11, 2025), which provided a significant liquidity boost to businesses in the sector.
The significant sales losses in the three years of the Russian-Ukrainian war can in no way be covered by three days of the Fair.
However, as the president of the Kastoria Furriers Association “Prophet Elias” and president of the Greek Fur Federation, Apostolos (Akis) Tsoukas, pointed out to “N”, the main thing is that the three days of the Fair brought smiles back to the furriers, due to the large injection of liquidity and marked a first important step towards recovery.
The Fair, according to Tsoukas, went exceptionally well and “if Russia were in the game, which unfortunately wasn’t, we would be talking about the best Fair of all time”, while now, thanks to the fact that the Kastoria Fur Exhibition Center is privately owned, the Kastoria International Fur Fair, as the president of the fur companies added, “it plays the game alone on the global stage of the industry”, as it was able to stay on its feet during the coronavirus and the war, while all other international fairs are held in rented facilities and have generally suffered major blows. Just a few days ago, he received a request to participate in the 2026 Kastoria International Fur Fair from the Hong Kong Fur Federation.
Expanding into new markets and increasing domestic sales
In the meantime, thanks to the good cooperation of the Kastoria Fur Manufacturers Association with Enterprise Greece, as Tsoukas pointed out, the recent Kastoria International Fur Fair was attended by many trade visitors from Japan and Romania. In particular, the Romanian market, according to a very recent report by the trade attaché at the Greek IED office in Bucharest, Konstantinos Dikaros, Romania is a fairly large, decentralized and clearly interesting market, with actual exports of Greek fur amounting to 2.0-2.5 million euros annually. Also, the trade visitors who participated in the recent Kastoria Fur Fair mainly made test purchases of a variety of items, with a total value of around 84 thousand euros, while based on current demand and their annual sales, they anticipate making purchases of around 700 thousand euros within the next 12 months.
The strong return of vintage clothing that includes natural fur across the fashion world also gives furriers optimism, while this winter, according to Tsoukas, a spectacular increase in fur sales was recorded in the domestic market, especially in Athens.
