“The world economy is suddenly short of everything,” Bloomberg headlined a few days ago. A phrase that explains well what is happening in the world, with the increase in demand from companies that is literally disrupting global supply chains. A year ago, as the pandemic ravaged country after country and economies were shaking, consumers panicked, alerted – fortunately incorrectly – to a possible famine. Today, while vaccines show glimmers of recovery, are the companies trying to stock up.
Mattress manufacturers, automobile manufacturers, those who work with aluminum foil, are buying more material than necessary to survive the dizzying speed with which the demand for goods is growing. And this frenzy – linked to other contingent factors (such as the blockade of the Suez Canal) – is pushing supply chains to the brink of chaos. Shortages of raw materials, troubled logistics, price spikes. All in the growing concern that an overloaded global economy could fuel inflation.
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But what are the raw materials that are most lacking? The answer closest to the real could be “almost all”. Copper, iron, steel. But also corn, coffee, wheat and soy. And again, timber, semiconductors, plastic and cardboard for packaging. So let’s see some sectors that are undergoing this great crisis.
Play Station 5
“Unfortunately we find a great shortage of semiconduttorie other components ». These are the words of Sony’s Chief Financial Officer, Hiroki Totoki, about Play Station 5. The game console, which arrived on the market in the last months of 2020, is an absolute object of desire. Often unobtainable, and when it is available it is sold out. So why hasn’t Sony increased production? Because – as the CFO explained – the crisis in raw materials (semiconductors above all) is a real problem.
Toilet paper
It seems absolutely absurd, but one of the sectors hit by the chaos on raw materials is that of toilet paper. The Suzano SA, the largest producer of wood pulp – the raw material for products including toilet paper – has indicated that the logistical difficulties triggered by the raw materials crisis (containers required by other sectors, transport in the balance, etc.) could create problems of supplying.