The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has led to international sanctions against Russia, which is an exporter of some of the world’s major raw materials, with its principal exports including natural gas, crude oil, wheat, aluminum, and palladium. Such international sanctions have severed such commodity supply, making importers fervently rush to grab up these materials and sending the prices of raw materials skyrocketing.

  As of March 7, the price of West Texas crude oil from the United States was quoted at US$125.0 per barrel, while that of Brent crude oil from the North Sea was reported at US$130.3 per barrel. The prices of these two crude oils have soared by nearly 66.2% and 67.6%, respectively, since the beginning of this year, with both reaching new highs since the 2008 financial tsunami. Although copper is not a sanctioned commodity, under the panic atmosphere, the international copper price broke through US$10,000 and was quoted at US$10,702 per ton. With the lengthening of the war, it is highly likely that prices of international raw materials will continue to soar.

  Taiwanese PCB has not set up any manufacturing plants in Russia or Ukraine, and the two countries are also not primary import and export markets for Taiwanese PCB. Therefore, it can be reasoned that the Russian-Ukrainian war will not exert a direct impact on manufacturers' revenue. Nonetheless, industrial electronic-grade solvents and resins used in the production of PCB are all related to petroleum, and copper accounts for about 20~30% of the production cost of PCB. As such, runaway surge of raw materials will definitely push up the manufacturing costs of PCB to heavily erode profit margins from manufacturers. Coupled with the launch of economic sanctions against Russia by various countries, pressure from all of these measures should speed up inflation and ultimately suppress the sales momentum of end products, which is also considered one of the factors that upset the growth performance of the PCB industry this year.