Will Aluminium follow?
THE Aluminium industry in India is facing a severe crisis due to flow of cheap imports from China. After Steel cheered the safeguard duty, captains of the Aluminium Industry belonging to BALCO, HINDALCO and NALCO met the Finance Minister and represented to him the need to impose at least 10% duty on aluminium imports. It is reported that imports of aluminium from China has more than trebled in the last year.
BALCO, a subsidiary of Vedanta Ltd has already given notice of the closure of its Korba unit in Chattisgarh. The CEO of BALCO in a Press Statement said, "The closure of the rolling mill is in the backdrop of a crash in global aluminium prices and the prohibitive cost of coal to run our power plants. Worldwide there has been a fall in energy cost but for BALCO the absence of linkage coal and regulatory issue for starting our coal mines is making operations economically unviable. Although aluminium prices have plunged globally in the last few months, power costs are rising in India, a contrarian trend making the cost of production increasingly unviable for primary aluminium manufacturers."