How should chemical manufacturer do business after COVID-19?

In the world after the new coronavirus, how should chemical manufacturer conduct business? In the face of future challenges, where are sustainable development and green chemistry suitable?

Chemical manufacturing is one of the largest manufacturing industries in the United States, with a huge domestic market and expanding global market – it is one of the largest exports of the United States. There are more than 13000 enterprises in the world with sales of more than 765 billion US dollars. Chemical manufacturing is the core of our environmental, social and economic future.

The products produced by chemical enterprises are usually part of the upstream supply chain of other industries, such as food, medical, construction, transportation, electronics and clothing. It helps with many of the consumer products we use at home, such as cleaning products. The types of business involved are also extremely diverse – for example, industrial intermediates, products, polymers, dyes and pharmaceuticals.

Like many industries, coronavirus has dealt a heavy blow to the chemical manufacturing industry, not only because of factory closures, but also because of measures taken to limit the activities of people and consumers. The sharp decline in World Trade and the drop in oil prices have erased the advantage of the United States over other countries in promoting its chemical exports.

The impact of coronavirus on the supply chain of chemical manufacturing industry is particularly serious. China, the world’s second largest economy, has been the first to bear the brunt of the impact on the global supply chain, which relies on China to import chemicals. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, many active pharmaceutical ingredients and drugs are purchased from China.

Even before the coronavirus attack, the global supply chain had been impacted by the Sino US trade war, which forced us companies to restructure the supply chain to reduce their dependence on China.

Chemical manufacturing relies on long-term distributed supply chain. The new coronavirus pandemic created a real bottleneck in the supply of chemicals from China, which quickly brought trouble to supply chains around the world.

Removing China from the supply chain means that chemical manufacturer must quickly adjust the supply chain to find alternative suppliers – which could pose problems in terms of global health in terms of pharmaceuticals in the pharmaceutical industry.