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MOSCOW (MRC) -- ACC’s chemical activity
barometer (CAB), a leading economic indicator and composite index of industry
activity, rose 1.5% in January, following a 1.3% increase in December, on a
sequential three-month moving average (3MMA), according to Chemweek.
The barometer was up 1.3% on
a year-on-year (YOY) basis in January.
“With nine months of gains, the
latest CAB reading is consistent with expansion in the US economy,” says Kevin
Swift, chief economist at ACC.
Indicators of industry activity were
broadly positive, including production-related indicators, trends in
construction-related resins and related performance chemistry, and resins and
chemistry for durable goods. This reflects, in part, a strong housing market in
the US and recovery in automotive demand. Plastic resins for packaging
applications also showed strong trends, as did equity prices and product and
input prices, ACC says.
As MRC reported
previously, US chemical volumes were expected to drop nearly 10% in
2020 as global economic activity contracts due to the impacts of COVID-19,
according to the American Chemistry Council's (ACC) Mid-Year 2020 Chemical
Industry Situation and Outlook. Volumes should recover in 2021 with a return to
pre-COVID-19 output levels in the US by the second half of 2021.
We remind
that Russia's output of chemical products rose in November 2020 by 9.5% year on
year. At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased in the first
eleven months of 2020 by 6.6% year on year, according to Rosstat's data.
According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation,
polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the
January-November 2020 output. November production of polymers in primary
form rose to 896,000 tonnes from 852,000 tonnes in October. Overall output of
polymers in primary form totalled 9,240,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by
17.1% year on year. |
