The industry operating rate recorded 42.42% this week, down 3.94 percentage points WoW. Inventory side, although zinc prices declined this week, alloy plants gradually entered the holiday phase, leading to lower raw material inventories, while finished product inventories increased driven by pre-holiday stockpiling by enterprises. The decline in operating rates this week was mainly due to some companies having already halted production for the holiday. End-use demand also remained sluggish. Although zinc prices pulled back slightly toward the end of the week, many downstream hardware factories were on holiday, resulting in insufficient purchase willingness in the market. Demand across various sectors fell into seasonal doldrums. Looking ahead to next week, large enterprises planning Chinese New Year breaks will enter the shutdown phase, and the die-casting zinc alloy operating rate is expected to drop significantly to around 23.9% with fluctuations.
