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There are no trading activities in China today as players are off for the Tomb Sweeping Festival.

In Southeast Asia, the general market trend across the region is developing on diverged direction, especially in the PP sector. In fact, Vietnamese buyers are showing stronger belief that the import homo-PP market is stabilising and might regain strength in the near term. “There are very limited number of offers from overseas suppliers available at the moment and prices below the $1090/ton mark are becoming scarce. We have been requesting for homo-PP yarn from a Saudi producer since last week, however, unable to obtain any quantity,” a Vietnamese buyer reported.

Couple of overseas suppliers have also raised intention to implement hike on their cargoes to Vietnam after achieving satisfactory sales to the country in the previous week. A South Korean maker sold homo-PP at $1110/ton CIF Vietnam, LC AS term last Friday commented, “We have completed annual book closing and planed to lift offers to $1130/ton FOB South Korea. We might re-open offer again in the next couple of weeks.”

Meanwhile, local homo-PP yarn prices in certain area in Indonesia have plunged to the level $1180/ton without VAT, FD Indonesia, cash term, which is very similar to import offers from Southeast Asian suppliers. A trader commented, “Sentiment might be further dampened in the near term and buyers might continue to pressure import offers. It appears that only Asian suppliers are active in Indonesia recently, while Middle Eastern sellers are showing less interest.”

In the regional PE market, suppliers are still holding relatively firm stance on their cargoes claiming that the preparation for Ramadan season would stimulate demand in the coming days. A Middle Eastern maker maintains LLDPE C6 film offers to the region at $1260/ton CIF term said, “Besides, we are seeing better prospect in China, therefore we are not planning any price cut for now.”

Buying interest for PE in local Malaysia market also improved visibly compared to the first three months of the years. Major domestic producer would close April delivery offers by tomorrow, 5 April 2017 and many converters are rushing to make replenishment. “We plan to buy two months worth of stock to avoid delivery issues that usually occur during the Ramadan. Our end product business is regular at the moment,” a converter reported. A good number of deals have been reported this week so far.