Vitamin prices in China to remain buoyant due to a supply-demand balance

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the lunar new year holiday in China was the biggest annual movement of people on earth as the people around the world unite for this festival. However, this year, massed ranks of travelers faced an unusual risk due to the unprecedented spread of the Omicron variant of the covid-19, which came with the possibility that they might not be allowed to return to their hometown. As this highly contagious variant started driving an unprecedented wave of infections across the globe, several Chinese manufacturing industries declared a forced closure after the authorities largely enacted a zero-tolerance covid policy to curb its spread. Major Vitamin manufacturers, including Zhejiang Medicine Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang NHU Co., Ltd., shut down their operations in Zhejiang Province in East China, which negatively impacted the supply of Vitamins amid high demand across the country ahead of the festive season and winter Beijing Olympics. As China welcomed the athletes from the different parts of the world for the Winter Olympics on Friday, i.e., February 4th, the capital city Beijing doubled down on its zero-Covid approach, which involves citywide lockdowns and mass testing.

As per ChemAnalyst, the prices of Vitamins are anticipated to remain buoyant in the Chinese domestic market as the demand and supply are likely to ease after Lunar New Year celebrations in the upcoming weeks. After mirroring the same price trend as the previous week, the FOB Qingdao discussions for Vitamin B2, Vitamin D, and Vitamin C were settled at USD 58200/MT, USD 15070/MT, and USD 6085/T, respectively, on the week ending February 4th. However, the market witnessed a lull last week in the supply chain, which worsened amid factory closures and port delays in China. According to industry experts, one of the major problems that the suppliers could witness is no time for recovering before the next shock hits. However, the demand is likely to get stable once the operations resume in China as it leads the world in making and exporting several Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API).

The industry ministry announced on Sunday that China would make its law enforcement policies strict to stop the monopoly practices and unfair competition in the pharmaceutical industries as the Chinese government seeks to develop a good business environment.