Indian aluminum manufacturers need to improve cost competitiveness

The impact of falling prices by the LME price is relatively cheap to import large quantities of aluminum products and, in the long term India need to focus on aluminum producer cost competitiveness to compete with global colleagues.

Large local Indian national aluminum producer Alcoa (Nalco), India Aluminium (Hindalco Industries) and Vedanta (Vedanta) has been proposed to increase import duty to 10% of the requirements (currently 5%). In addition, metal prices have also affected their competitive advantage, forcing factories idle more than half capacity.

Official said, raising import taxes can immediately relieve pressure Indian aluminum producers in the short term, but in the long term or to improve cost competitiveness is more important. Energy and bauxite are the two main resource costs, so finding an effective way to reduce costs and improve competitiveness is the brunt.

2010 --11--2014--15 year, aluminum imports increased from 880,000 tons to 1.56 million tons, the annual compound growth rate of 15%. On the other hand, the market share of domestic producers dropped from 60% to 44%.