Satish Pai sees 2019 as a tough year for metals market: Source says

According a recent report, Hindalco managing director Mr. Satish Pai said in an interview that he believed the ongoing year (2019) to be a tough year for metals and commodities, with the US and China showing no sign of easing trade tensions. He pointed out the US-China trade wars which were expected to be sorted by the second half of the year did not yet happen, resulting in no growth in worldwide demand for metals.

Commenting on the one-time plastic ban and aluminium being a better option, he said: “We took people from the Brazilian government to meet Niti Aayog on this topic because Brazil is a country that recycles a lot of more aluminium from cans and metals in general than this.”

“Many countries in the world have started to ban single-use plastic and in general plastic in the forms like pet bottles. The natural replacement normally has been aluminium and the reason it has been aluminium is that the cost-benefit, which is always important, works in the case of aluminium. We are trying to promote that with cans in India as well to move away from plastic or bottles,” he added.

According to Mr. Pai, despite a slowdown in the use of aluminium in many industrial sectors this year, amount of aluminium used in packaging has shown a steady growth of about 20 per cent to 25 per cent.

Around 20,000 tonnes of aluminium is being used in a year, which indicates a decent pickup in India in using aluminium foil and semi-rigid containers, Pai added.