Lethargic PP Market In Pakistan As Lockdown Sentiment Growing
- Import offers are hovering around $900/ton-level
- Mediocre demand while country battling another coronavirus outbreak
- Demand outlook palpably distressed
Pakistan PP market sentiment became lethargic as lockdowns have been reimposed in part of the country. A trader informed SSESSMENTS.COM that the company only have PP Homo Raffia offers from a South African producer at $920-930/ton, in conjunction with Middle East origin PP Homo Raffia at $960/ton. Another trader then reported that same South African producer offered both PP Homo Raffia and PP Homo Injection at $920/ton, while deals concluded for near-to-prime PP Homo Raffia from the Middle East at $875/ton. All import offers are for July shipment and on LC at sight, CFR Karachi Port.
Market sources told that PP demand in Pakistan is sluggish following the government decision to reimpose lockdown called “smart lockdown” policy. Even though it is not affecting the downstream production, the sentiment is turning sour as market players are very cautious of what is going to happen. Pakistan now identified 500 areas as "hotspots" or having a possible increase in ratio/speed of coronavirus infection per report by Al Jazeera on Tuesday (June 23). In line with the smart lockdown policy, these hotspots will be sealed off while general activities keep continuing after mass-scale lockdown lifted by the government on May 9. From the government’s brief, smart lockdown selected than reimposed complete lockdown because the country’s economy could not afford it; although, the official confirmed cases numbers keep increasing with 185,034 confirmed cases per June 22. As SSESSMENTS.COM reported two weeks ago, Pakistan's economy could contract by 0,2% in the next fiscal year according to World Bank projection. Pakistan's government has so far distributed PKR135,000,000,000 ($806,462,000) to low-income families to soften economic burden as the country is facing the threat of the loss of a quarter of employment due to a pandemic.
Pertaining to the overall outlook, market players in Pakistan choose not to say anything and prefer to wait-and-see. Quoting last week WeeklySSESSMENTS, PP resins demand in Pakistan predicted to go down as smart lockdown policy goes on.
