Southeast Asian supplier soften stance on import homo-PP to Indonesia

After a week on contrasting trend in the import market, which saw major Malaysian and Singaporean producers lifting July shipment offers for homo-PP by up to $60/ton, Indonesian buyers started receiving discounts from other regional sellers.

In fact, several deals for Vietnamese and Philippines cargoes have been reported at $15-20/ton reduction from last week to $1300-1320/ton CIF Indonesia, LC AS term and yet buyers here are not very eager in making large replenishment.

“We could not leverage on any price cuts given the recent steep depreciation of the Indonesian Rupiah against the US dollar. In the meantime, we have sourced some forward selling cargoes from local sellers at relatively competitive levels,” a woven bag maker said.

Many overseas sellers have been complaining about the weak demand for import homo-PP in Indonesia throughout the first half of the year amid the widely available of attractive domestic cargoes. “It is natural that buyers would opt for lower costs cargoes. With the current regional setting at the back ground coupled with the exchange rate, we think it is very difficult to introduce any hike in Indonesia unless the supplier has no sales pressure,” another buyer added.

With Vietnamese and Philippines cargoes witness reductions, buyers here are hoping to achieve similar prices from other regional sellers. In the meantime, suppliers appear to be taking the downtrend very slowly to monitor further development in the upstream energy complex and in local China market. Given the persistently tight supply from Middle East, it is less likely that prices would go through any major fall.