News and Market Update for End July 2021
This is an article from The Guardian Website from 6:30 am on Friday 30th July
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday approved the imposition of lockdown measures in the capital region.
The Manila capital region, an urban sprawl of 16 cities home to more than 13 million people, will be placed under the tightest quarantine curbs from 6 August to 20 August.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in a televised address. “While it is a painful decision, this is for the good of all.”
The lockdown will prevent people leaving their homes, except for essential shopping, while indoor and al fresco dining is banned.
The Philippines also extended a ban on travelers coming from 10 countries including India, Indonesia, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates to 15 August.
Already battling the second-worst coronavirus outbreak in Asia, the Philippines has so far recorded over 1.57 million confirmed Covid cases and more than 27,000 deaths.
The country has reported 216 cases of the Delta variant, but health experts say there could be more undetected cases because of the slow pace of the country’s genome sequencing.
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 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.
Prices for Coconut continue to rise, with prices higher than the Dec 2017 highs, as demand continues to be high even during the usually quieter European summer months, and production is still behind. There is no opportunity to catch up and re-build depleted stock levels in EU warehouses.
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 prices from the far east continue to remain at record highs with no sign they will get better this year. We are also seeing limited to zero availability for some routes into the US.
Forecasts are difficult to do right now – unpredictability is the keyword. We believe that prices will peak in Q4, and shipping costs will probably stay at the same rates well into 2022.