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AUGUST 2021 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 49 other countries that the rising U.S. debt is a major factor in raw material pricing. I will leave this one to the professors and economists to analyze. Using statistics from the first six months of 2021, we have several intriguing facts: • Overall demand for PCBs is up approximately 30% over 2020 • e average loading of the major fabricators exceeds 90% • Average cost of the raw material to the fabricators is up 38% • e U.S. dollar has decreased against the Yuan by approximately 8% (Note, this is aer a de-valuation by China to offset the U.S. inflation rate) • e public companies in Asia are under pressure to offset their margin losses and protect the share price. Margin loss resulted in a net drop in share price in 2021 from 10% to 38% for nine of the 10 public PCB shops in China polled • e average cost to the fabricator of a multi-layer PCB has increased by approximately 40% over 2020 e critical fact to note is that the average retail price of a PCB (without any tariff ) has not increased at the same rate as the cost to the fabricator shops. e average increase at the retail level (OEM) is closer to 25–30%. It is expected that the pressure on the public shops to improve their margin and share price Figure 2: An example of a "Five Whys" response from Asia.