Manufacturers say demand gives sign of resumption
Valor Econômico 05/05/2009
After suffering a fall above 25% in volume at the end of last year and in the beginning of this year, the manufacturers of plastic resins already see signals of recovery in the months of March and April. They now evaluate that the sales may reach the same levels seen in 2008 or even more. With the stocks in the plastic chain practically back to normal, the companies already feel a resumption of the domestic demand, foreseeing a strong warming-up of the market in the second half of the year. "There is no more crisis in the resin sector", says the CEO of Braskem, Bernardo Gradin. According to the officer of the biggest Brazilian petrochemical company, the volume of stocks is getting back to normal.
Braskem evaluates its clients started buying again, even though they are operating with lower volume of stocks than they used to do before crisis, of 10 days, five less than at that time. But the petrochemical company already evaluates the orders are growing at a faster pace. During Brasilplast, the plastics fair, held this week in São Paulo, Gradin affirmed the reaction of the market until the end of the year will be bigger, foreseeing a positive result for 2009. According to the plastics commercial officer of Dow Brasil, Diego Donoso, the sales in March were regularized at the same levels of 2008, indicating a replacement of stocks with lower prices after the fall in the price of the oil derivates. The financial crisis, which knocked the prices of plastic resins down, forced the Brazilian petrochemical companies to stop their plants in the end of last year, in order to meet a smaller demand. Such period of reduction of stocks, which took some months, is getting to the end, Says Donoso.