The recovery of Spanish color manufacturers continues: according to ANFFECC's findings, 417 million euros were reached in the second quarter of 2021 , up 11.5 percent from the first quarter of the year.
Of these 417 million, about 131.8 million were made in the Spanish market (+12.5 percent), while the remainder (285.3 million) came from the export market (+11.1 percent). With respect to exports, the countries that purchased the most from Spanish color manufacturers were Italy, Algeria, India, Turkey, Morocco and Brazil.
While the market is showing encouraging signs of a solid recovery, industry leaders fear excessive increases in the costs of raw materials, energy, transportation and CO2 emission rights.
Rising costs worry growth
Also according to estimates by the ANFFECC trade association, the first problem is the cost of electricity, at its highest peak in a few months. Exacerbating the picture are price increases of even more than 25 percent for other energy sources, such as natural gas.
Not only energy, however: high prices were also felt for raw materials: +200% for lithium compounds; +100% for tin oxide; +75% for wollastonite and cobalt oxide; praseodymium and oxides of zirconium, titanium, iron, or barium carbonate between +40% and 50%.
The 2020 of Spanish dye factories
We had already talked about the Spanish dye factories and, in general, Spain's 2020.
The year 2020 ended with total revenues of 1,256 million euros, marking a decrease of 5.3% over 2019. This figure, however, needs to be put into context, taking into consideration that in the second quarter of 2020, the market declined by -37% compared to 2019, due to the closures imposed for the pandemic.
The recovery, therefore, appears even more remarkable and better than expected.
