Busan, South Korea: Isopropyl Alcohol prices debilitated in the APAC region, primarily in South Korea, as weak domestic demand from the end-user sector continued to hurt the nation's trade activity during January 2023, following the previous month's trend. Input purchasing stayed weak while backlogs of work fell this month. Overall outputs from the downstream sectors fell as new domestic and international inquiries fell consistently.

Restricted supply seems to be an added component that reinforced this weak trend of Isopropyl Alcohol. Experts continued to reduce their market values of end-product as the inventories remained on the higher side. Furthermore, the decrease in upstream cost since September 2022 has kept Isopropyl Alcohol market sentiments on the weak side.

Moreover, demand weakness from its primary market, China, and prolonged logistics disruptions caused by a second nationwide trucker resulted in the hoarding of shipments at the ports of Busan. Hence, overall shipments exported to China from South Korea slumped on a higher level in January 2023 on a year-on-year basis, and those to the United States were reduced by around 6.1 percent.

On top of that, the deterioration in South Korean manufacturing conditions was sustained by lower consumer interest and previous pent-up inventories. Due to this, the manufacturers decreased their production and overall operational charges, as the availability of upstream material was also enough to meet any immediate orders of Isopropyl Alcohol. With this, January 2023 displayed a decrease of 7.92 percent in the prices of Isopropyl Alcohol in South Korea.

As per ChemAnalyst, "Isopropyl Alcohol prices in South Korea anticipate a positive market sentiment in the upcoming months. Market participants might expect ease in supply activities, which are expected to surge in export activities. Demand from the domestic and international markets might follow an upward trajectory, supporting the positive price trend of Isopropyl Alcohol. Further, a surge in upstream cost is expected to reinforce the market sentiments in upcoming months."