SEA PVC exports fall, China fades, Italy disappears in Turkey

Southeast Asian countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam had been major contributors to Turkey’s PVC market in 2008 with a total of 142,739 tons. Their contribution in 2009 dropped considerably as per Chemorbis. Imports from Indonesia lost half of their value in 2009, falling from 45,965 tons to 23,042 tons. Malaysia dropped dramatically to 17,971 tons from 48,458 tons while Thailand fell from 70,857 tons to 37,604 tons. Vietnam also lost half although from a smaller base of 10,712 tons in 2008 to 4,438 tons in 2009. In 2008, Chinese imports accounted for 16,738 tons, a figure already down when considering the whopping 119,907 tons of Chinese imports seen in 2006. However, in 2009 imports were a measly 5,227 tons. On the contrary, Japanese and South Korean imports increased their shares in the Turkish PVC market in 2009. Japanese imports have seen nearly a 7-fold increase in 2009 at 33,014 tons. Although South Korea was looking for other outlets in 2009, Turkey saw only a small portion of their reoriented export quantities with a slight increase to 21,679 tons from the 2008 figure of 17,361 tons. Imports from Europe also saw a shuffle in 2009 with the northern countries of Norway, Holland and Sweden taking a larger share at the expense of countries such as Germany, Belgium, Italy and Romania. Imports from Holland jumped from 3,366 tons to 16,022 tons, while Norway’s imports increased 5-fold to 25,099 from 4,543 tons and Sweden tripled its imports to 18,327 tons from 5,443 tons. Despite the removal of antidumping duties from the origin of Belgium, imports from this country dropped from 14,078 tons in 2008 to a total of 4,030 in 2009. Germany which is still subject to antidumping duty, saw a decline to 21,466 tons from 2008’s figure of 30,462 tons. With the shutdown of the plants in Italy, imports from the country were nearly non-existent in 2009 compared to 28,265 tons in 2008. Romania once a leader in imports to Turkey has dropped to just 6,993 tons from last year’s 45,587 tons. In previous years, Romania was responsible for 107,373 tons of imports in Turkey in the year 2005 and again the figure was over 100,000 at 103,134 tons in 2006. Brazil which did not even appear on the list of imports in 2008, showed up in 2009 with a figure of 8,873 tons. The US remained a competitor despite its high 6.5% customs duty and US$45/ton antidumping duty with imports of 118,543 tons in 2009 compared with 75,669 tons in 2008.