This year, South Korea's petrochemical exports will be difficult to continue following the cost will still support product prices

Relevant analysts recently stated that South Korean petrochemical producers will continue to rely on the Chinese market in 2010, but the strong demand momentum like last year cannot be reproduced.
According to data from Korea International Trade Association, the export volume of polyethylene in South Korea increased by 14% to 1.34 million tons in 2009; PVC exports increased by nearly 30% year-on-year, close to 670,000 tons. At the same time, South Korea still maintains its position as the largest exporter of base oil in Asia. In 2009, it exported a total of 2.83 million tons of base oil, an increase of 9% year-on-year.
South Korea's petrochemical products exported to China this year will be reduced. The high growth in demand, as it was last year, is an anomaly, mainly due to the emergence of more unplanned shutdowns for manufacturers in the Taiwanese region. This situation is unlikely to occur this year.
Some analysts also believe that the weakening of the won has increased the export competitive advantage of Korean petrochemical producers to Japanese petrochemical producers, thereby gaining more market share in China. However, as China's domestic and Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Singapore newly build petrochemical production capacity in succession in 2010, the export of Korean petrochemical products will weaken. In addition, the production of a large number of newly added petrochemical production capacity in the Middle East will also cause greater pressure on Korean petrochemical producers' exports.
Analysts said that China’s imports of petrochemical products will remain strong in the first half of this year, but it may weaken in the second half of the year, as new domestic petrochemical production capacity will increase market supply.
Since the outbreak of the global financial crisis, China has become a bright spot in global economic growth. In 2009, it achieved a GDP growth of 8.7%. But now, the Chinese government intends to cool the potentially overheated economy, which will have a negative impact on neighboring countries, especially those neighbors that rely on exports. At the beginning of the new year, the Chinese government has begun to adjust loose monetary policies to curb excessive credit expansion.
Affected by the adjustment of China's monetary policy, Asian petrochemical product prices began to weaken, but traders still said that the strong demand from end-users should be able to support the price of petrochemical products.

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