Korea's paint industry is raising product prices one after another due to the impact of a strong dollar-won exchange rate, rising oil prices, and higher logistics costs.
Noroo Paint raised prices on major paint products by 3% to 5% in Nov. last year. The company said price hikes were unavoidable as cost pressures grew with a strong dollar-won exchange rate, rising oil prices, higher materials and supplies prices, and increased transportation costs.
In particular, paint is produced based on crude oil, and the industry structure is such that costs are heavily affected by oil price fluctuations.
Samhwa Paint also moved to raise prices. Samhwa Paint notified transaction partners on the 1st that it would raise prices on major products by about 10%. The company said the background for the price increase was the continued expansion of expense burdens such as higher raw and subsidiary material prices, transportation costs, and labor costs, along with weakened demand due to the global economic downturn.
Meanwhile, Noroo Paint and Samhwa Paint suffered declines in results last year due to a slump in the construction market. Noroo Paint's operating profit last year was 30.1 billion won, down 30.9% from a year earlier. During the same period, Samhwa Paint's operating profit fell 49.7% to 9.5 billion won.