Italy’s plastics imports for August 2010 slow down

25-Nov-10

Recent statistics revealed by Eurostat show that Italy’s plastics imports in August were the lowest in the eight months of 2010 – plunging on a monthly basis, decreasing from 383,000 tons to 243,000 tons from July 2010 to August 2010, as per Chemorbis. This fall from July to August can be attributed to the lack of activity during the summer holidays. In comparison with the same period of 2009, however, the country’s imports represent an increase of 36,000 tons on a yearly basis. PE imports took a hit in August 2010 with LDPE, HDPE and LLDPE registering decreases month over month. Italy’s LDPE imports in August 2010 were at 28,000 tons vs the 48,000 tons in July 2010. HDPE imports were down to 38,000 tons from 57,000 tons of July 2010 and LLDPE imports fell to 15,000 tons from 24,000 tons compared to the same period. Similarly, the country’s PVC imports saw almost a 50% decrease from July 2010 to August 2010, with the total PVC imports decreasing from 61,000 tons to 34,000 tons on a monthly basis. When looking at the PP market, the figures were also down on a monthly basis both for homo PP and PP block copolymer with the country’s total PP imports declining from 86,000 tons to 53,000 tons for homo PP and from 38,000 tons to 25,000 tons for PP block copolymer in August 2010. In the PS market, the trend was the same. In August 2010, Italy imported less PS material compared to July 2010, with the country’s total PS imports retreating from 26,000 tons to 19,000 tons in August. The top three import countries were Germany, France and Belgium with total import figures at 43,382 tons, 40,392 tons and 33,386 tons respectively. All of these countries saw steep declines in their monthly import totals but gainers included Iran, Qatar, Thailand and the US. The major gainer was the US as imports from that country rose to 3,112 tons in August 2010 compared to that in July 2010 at 822 tons. On the other hand, imports from Saudi Arabia decreased to 18,575 tons from a total of 22,737 tons in July 2010.