Even as the coronavirus spreads its way around the globe, with cases reported in at least 47 countries, the situation in China appears to be getting better. The number of new cases reported inside China continues to drop day by day, and the majority of new cases are localized to the city Wuhan, where the COVID-19 first originated.  

For GCP, this means we’ve started to receive production finish dates for recently submitted orders. In addition, orders that were completed before the Chinese New Year are scheduled to begin shipping early next week. Both of these developments are good news. 

Here is the latest information as it relates to our production partners:

1. Premlene, National Silicone, Rubatex, conveyor belting & clamp factories have obtained government approval to begin production. 
2. Most of returning workers at these facilities are out of quarantine and are back to work. 
3. We expect in the next week or two that all our production partners should be fully staffed.
4. The majority of our factory partners have sufficient raw material inventory to carry on normal production. 
5. Issues with trucking still exist but the situation is improving. We receive updates regularly.
6. Ocean carriers have idle capacity and ports deemed low virus risk, are expected to resume normal operations by the end of next week.

At this moment it is unclear how the spread of the virus will impact our supply chain. However, we are optimistic that China has turned the corner. We will continue to monitor the events closely, and provide updates as new information becomes available. 

Melanie will continue to provide updates and will send out the weekly production report each Friday. 

Sincerely,

The GCP Team