Oil Price Shockwave Transmission Investigation: Dongguan Plastic City once experienced a rush for goods; after the clamor subsided, the market returned to calm.

People’s Finance News, March 27 - “These days, we have indeed been a bit ‘distracted,’ spending all our time tracking price fluctuations and engaging in ineffective negotiations with clients, while production and business have taken a backseat,” said Xu Gaofeng, head of Shenzhen Yihua Technology Co., Ltd., expressing his frustration regarding the chaos in the downstream raw materials market triggered by the recent surge in crude oil prices. This disorder is vividly displayed in Dongguan Zhangmutou Plastic City, known as the “barometer” of the national plastic market. At the beginning of March, trucks lined up for several kilometers to buy goods, merchants’ phones rang incessantly, prices changed by the minute, and downstream manufacturers, fearing they wouldn’t be able to purchase materials, sparked an unexpected “plastic rush.” However, a recent on-site visit by Securities Times reporters found that this frenzy was short-lived. The plastic city has now calmed down, warehouses are stocked full, but there are very few vehicles coming to pick up goods. Although plastic prices remain high, the ample supply has prevented any substantial shortages, and the market has quietly fallen into a deadlock of “firm quotes but poor transactions.” A short-term surge ignited by geopolitical conflicts and driven by emotions ultimately returns to a rational game dominated by supply and demand fundamentals.