I try and give a monthly report on price trends of agricultural chemicals coming out of China.

Prices are often dictated by supply and demand.  At the moment these two forces are generally in balance but the market which is priced primarily in dollars, is being weighed down by a weakening USD exchange rate.  In the last month, the Yuan has strengthened from about 6,70 Yuan to 7,0 Yuan to the dollar.

• This represents a strengthening of 4,5%.
  • This dollar weakness will be priced into the USD export price shortly.

If the Rand:USD does not firm at the same rate commodity prices in rand terms will increase.

Survey of a number of agricultural chemical price trends are listed in the table below