COVID-19 Impact on Ceramic Frit in Chemical and Materials Industry

INTRODUCTION
In the glass industry, each dealer has predicted the crises that will occur due to the pandemic situations that the COVID-19 is generating globally in the glass market but COVID-19 has the mixed pattern situation for the glass companies in developing countries. At the same time, the demand for ceramic frit that are not used on a more frequent basis has decreased as a result of lock-down and halting of manufacture units in various regions. For the product ranges sold by manufacturers / dealers, the effect of COVID-19 on the glass industry can be seen.
In the glass industry, each dealer has predicted the crises that will occur due to the pandemic situations that the COVID-19 is generating globally in the glass market but COVID-19 has a mixed pattern situation for the glass companies in developing countries. At the same time, the demand for ceramic frit that is not used on a more frequent basis has decreased as a result of lockdown and halting of manufacturing units in various regions. For the product ranges sold by manufacturers/dealers, the effect of COVID-19 on the glass industry can be seen.
The glass industry plays a vital role in the development of the economy as with the increase in the construction activities in the region or in the country more employment will be generated and which leads to more income generation and which helps to increase in the demand of the products. As Glass involves different materials that are manufactured by several industries so with the increase in the glass industry in the developing nations will increases the revenue generation for several manufactures.

IMPACT ON BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Developed countries such as the U.S. relies on the shipments of 30% of its construction materials such as steel, iron, insulating materials, wood, stones, copper, aluminum from China. Due to the disruptions in the supply chain from one country to another and reductions in imports and exports of goods widely affected the building and construction industry.
The construction companies are taking all the safety measures and provident their employees with the safety kits, hand sanitizers, masks before they initiate their work but this is not enough to stop the spreading of the virus. In various counties where construction activities are essential, restrictions to public transportation detrimentally impact workers' ability to work. Numerous construction companies already implemented the travel bans for the employees originating from high-risk states which will lead to the shortage of labor.
Even in cities and states where construction activities are considered essential, restrictions to public transportation and the closure of schools, child care facilities, and businesses are expected to detrimentally impact workers’ ability to work. Many construction companies, site owners, and contractors are already implementing travel bans for employees or travel restrictions on those workers originating from high-risk states. The progression of some projects will inevitably be impeded by a shortage of skilled labor.
The governments of various countries have halted various business activities to reduce the spread of the novel virus. However, the building and construction activity is halted in the initial days of lockdown only but the government permits most of the construction activities to resume in the second month of lockdown in most of the countries. The health and safety risks of COVID-19 vary from project to project such as consumers who are working outside in an open field and are taking proper safety precaution and are not physically in touch with each other are in a low risk as compare to the consumers who are working in the corporates and offices.
As compared to last year, residential property sales have dropped on a wider range from 78,510 units in 2019 to 45,200 units in 2020. The sales of residential as well as commercial sectors declined by 30% in major metropolitan cities. In Mumbai, there was a huge decline of 42% in the sale of units and on the other hand, Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad’s sales decreased by 25%. Due to the huge drop in the sales, most of the companies are not taking new construction projects due to the crisis and reduction in the supply of the construction materials as well as a shortage of labor in the country which is causing a huge loss. The country has faced a loss of USD 14.17 billion in 2020.
For instance,
• In April 2020, KPMG announces that more than Rs 59 lakh crore construction projects in India are under development and impacted severely by Covid-19
STRATEGIC INITIATIVES DURING COVID-19
• In May 2020, Johnson Matthey was donated assemble ventilators to DHL. This step as help to creat market goodwill ant intract more customer.
• Johnson Matthey has take a initiated to manufactoer a vital drug ingredients and medical devices for healthcare industry.
To be back on track, the glass market now needs to identify critical building materials and focus there. The meaning of analyzing the critical building materials is to classify the building materials among long-lead-time requirement and short term requirement, availability of suppliers in COVID-19 affected countries, and their exposure to COVID-19 regions. Another aspect of manufacturers has realized is their over-dependency on one supplier. Its time for the firms to start looking for alternative suppliers, mostly local suppliers to avoid any further risk and to be prepared for any such crises in the future. Though it’s not certain by when businesses will be on track, whenever they will, there will be a demand crunch for raw materials. All will rush to procure raw materials.
Through adopting different strategies such as growing manufacturing efficiency, new product launches, and product distribution, the manufacturers seek to achieve optimal market development. The exponential growth of transformer oil in sectors such as electrical distributions is projected to provide attractive prospects for key market players. This is anticipated that variables such as the locations for distribution and sales can help boost the overall position of the business. Small domestic players and especially emerging players in developed countries are likely to obtain opportunities to position themselves in the marketplace.

CONCLUSION
COVID-19 has crashed the glass industry as the demand for the ceramic frit has fallen due to which the price has also fallen. Even the price of the glass during the lockdown has gone in negative also. Demand from the different regions has deceases due to a long-term halt in production. COVID-19 have impacted the connection between different regions as import and export have stopped due to which oil manufacturing companies have to face losses. Most of the construction labor is already headed to their homes or villages and doing other work and they are not willing to return and resume their construction work again which causes the shortage of skilled laborers in urban areas due to which large projects are running out of time.
Several manufactures closed the factory due to heavy losses. Companies are making the strategic action to increase the demand of the ceramic frit in the market and to increase the price so to earn revenue and government also helping the manufactures by making policies which help manufacture to maintain stability.
Many manufacturers are adopting new technologies to gain profit and turns down the situation into their favor. Most of the countries are importing their construction materials from China and other countries and due to the restriction in the export and import of goods from one country to another is widely impacting the construction activities. The increase in government initiatives and increases workforce in the industry will help to increases the market growth in the future.