Market Update 16th August 2021

Manilla is currently on a heighten lockdown. Moving around Manilla and its suburbs is problematic, meaning some factory workers struggle to get to work easily. There is also a lot of office staff working from home, which is not ideal. 

Just 5.5 million Filipinos have now been fully vaccinated, which is just 5% of a population of 109,035,343, so the end of COVID related lockdowns is a long way off for the Philippines.

There has also been monsoon flooding in the past few weeks with one of the first typhoons of the season Typhoon In-fa, with thousands of people fleeing from their homes and put up in COVID save refuges.

Supply in the Philippines is tight, so any further interruptions from COVID and Typhoons will only hurt production volumes.

With the demand across America and the Europe still at record highs, even over the usually quieter summer months, we are now nearly full for November and December, and October shipments are sold out.

Ports worldwide are getting regular COVID breakouts, added to delays – although the peak delays of the first half of 2021 appear to be getting a little better.

Shipping costs are still at record highs and are not liable to come down this year and probably next – there was a report last week that shipping to the US from China was $20,000!!

With many businesses holding out on ordering until shipping prices drop, this plan looks to have backfired with higher shipping costs and no availability. There is likely to be a struggle to get raw materials, further inflating prices into Quarter 4.