In March 2021, the China national factory price of industrial producers (PPI) increased by 1.6% month-on-month, which is the highest value since the month-on-month data (2002 to present);
In March, the PPI rose 4.4% year-on-year, setting the highest level since July 2018, an increase of 2.7 points from the previous month’s 1.7% year-on-year!
Purchasing prices for industrial producers rose 5.2% year-on-year and 1.8% month-on-month.
On average from January to March, the ex-factory prices for industrial producers rose 2.1% over the same period last year, and the purchasing prices for industrial producers rose 2.8%.
Month on month:
Prices of raw materials rose by 2.0%, an increase of 0.9 percentage points
Among the 40 industrial sectors surveyed, 30 experienced price increases, 75% increase, 6 declined, and 4 remained unchanged.
The prices of oil and natural gas extraction industries rose by 9.8%, the prices of petroleum, coal and other fuel processing industries rose by 5.7%, and the prices of chemical raw materials and chemical products manufacturing industries rose by 5.3%, an increase of 2.3, 0.8 and 3.2 percentage points respectively.
The price of ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry rose by 4.7%, an increase of 2.4 percentage points.
The domestic non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry prices rose by 4.5%, an increase of 3.0 percentage points.
According to calculations, the five industries mentioned above affect the PPI increase by about 1.27 percentage points, accounting for 80% of the total increase.
Year-on-year:
Prices of raw materials rose by 5.8%, an increase of 3.5 percentage points
The ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry rose 21.5%, an increase of 7.4 percentage points.
The non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry rose 21.3%, an increase of 9.2 percentage points.
The manufacturing of chemical raw materials and chemical products rose by 11.4%, an increase of 7.4 percentage points.
The oil and gas extraction industry rose 23.7%.
Petroleum, coal and other fuel processing industries rose 13.9%.
The electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing industry rose 1.0%.
The above parameters are comes from Official English version of the China National Bureau of Statistics released:
Links: http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202104/t20210412_1816172.html
Specific to raw materials:
Aluminum:
Aluminum prices jumped to their highest in nearly three years. The price for aluminum for three-month delivery on the London Metal Exchange has risen to its highest since June 2018, reaching $2,350 per ton. The most-traded May aluminum contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose as much as 2.7% to 18,045 yuan ($2,760.53) a tonne, its highest since August 2011.
Links: https://www.reuters.com/article/global-metals-idCNL1N2M705N
Cooper:
London Metal Exchange (LME) three-month copper hit a near 10-year high of $9,617 per tonne in late February. Goldman says copper is the new oil, raises price forecast to $11,000 per metric ton.
Lumber:
The pandemic was a perfect storm for surging lumber prices. According to Random Lengths, the price of lumber per thousand board feet jumped to $1,048 in April. That’s an all-time high, and up 193% from a year ago.
