中国除草剂月报(除草剂中国新闻1803)

In March 2018, herbicide technical prices remained at high levels with slight fluctuations; some products saw small falls in prices. Although the peak season and spring ploughing are coming, transactions were flatter than previous years. Technical producers still bore huge environmental pressure––some maintained low operating rate, and some even in production suspension. Additionally, most upstream manufacturers' production costs kept high so they maintained low operating rate and high prices. This caused continuous supply shortages of some products. As both herbicide technical and intermediates were in high prices, downstream purchasers held a strong wait-and-see attitude. As for export, overseas clients were also waiting for a much stable market, and therefore, there were a few actual deals even despite of many inquiries.

It should be mentioned that in the upcoming 3 years China will implement increasingly stricter environmental inspections, according to the MEP in Feb. Besides Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its nearby areas, and Yangtze River Delta, Fen-Wei Plain (Xi’an and Xianyang cities are included) will be listed for the first time as the key area for air pollution prevention and control. That means that air pollution control will cover more key areas, and industry structure, energy structure and transportation in those areas will be deeply adjusted. In the short term, environmental inspections will support prices of some products with life cycles, but they will also lead to short supply.

The USD/RMB exchange rate in this newsletter is USD1.00=RMB6.3352 on 1 March, 2018, sourced from the People's Bank of China. All the prices mentioned in this newsletter will include the VAT, unless otherwise specified.