November – December months were reported to have slow lifting of plywood and laminates in market pan India but the last two weeks of December registered momentum in demand due to news about price rise. Spiraling prices of phenol and formaldehyde had indicated market for price rise of finished products and producers of plywood and laminate called up for immediate meeting of their members for evaluating the effect of input due to high cost of raw materials of finished products. During the meeting at different places, the producers decided to pass the burden of raw material cost to the consumers and gave approxone week time to increase the prices.
The price rise news went viral in market. Report from different market found an improvement in lifting of materials during last week of December. It was noted that ply-lam demand was down by 40% during November-December despite of lowering GST rates on Plywood from 28 to 18%, as experts anticipated that the demand would boost once the GST rates reduce.
Industry and market report indicates that January month will be comfortable for producers and distributors because they have sufficient pending orders for execution, although supply and production will be reduced in northern India during January due to cold wave and fog like situation. Payment and cash flow are still a challenge for entire wood panel industry and trade.