Catanduanes Forum

Price

As buyers continued competing to get enough supply of the preferred grades to serve their respective contractual obligations, average buying prices for abaca except for residual grades at the grading and baling establishments picked up this December vis-à-vis the November price level. Price hike for hand-stripped abaca ranged from a low of 0.5% (S2 and I) to a high of 3.4% (H). HS-S2 and HS-I were priced higher by P0.22/kg each to P47.13/kg and P46.62/kg, respectively this month compared to last month's level of P46.91/kg and P46.40/kg in that order. HS-H was bought at P22.35/kg, higher by P0.74/kg from a month-ago level of P21.61/kg. On the other hand, average buying prices for all residual grades except for Y softened during the comparative period. Price reductions were from a low of 0.1% (Y2 at P26.76/kg) to a high of 50.0% (O at P0.68/kg).

For spindle-stripped abaca fiber, price gains ranged from 0.2% (SS-S3 and SS-JK) to 7.5% (SS-M1) during the period under review. Price of SS-S3 and SS-JK improved by P0.05/kg and P0.07/kg, respectively, corresponding to P26.09/kg and P35.85/kg this month. Meanwhile, SS-M1 was paid a premium price of P20.61/kg in December, higher by P1.44/kg against P19.17/kg the previous month. Similar to the price situation of hand-stripped abaca, residual grades (SS-Y1 and SS-Y2) were priced lower this month in contrast to last month's figures. Price of SS-Y1 softened by P3.62/kg to P27.63/kg from P31.25/kg while price quotations for SS-Y2 reduced by P5.62/kg to P28.38/kg from P34.00/kg during the period under study.

Considering the top grades only, the price of G of both types of cleaning jacked up the most. HS-G was priced at 41.74/kg from 41.32/kg while SS-G was at 42.77/kg from 42.34/kg, each representing an increase of 1.0% during the comparative period. The lowest price hike, on the other hand, was recorded by HS-S2 and HS-I for hand-stripped and by SS-JK for spindle-stripped.