The Ukrainian Association of Metal Traders has reported an emerging crisis in the metal industry and considers that its main causes are declining demand for metal products on the world market and reduced pace of construction in Ukraine.
Ukrainian News learned this from the comments of association president Andrii Fedoseev.
"Our plants are oriented toward exports. In any case, 80% goes abroad where consumption of metal products has shrunk and prices have fallen," Fedoseev said.
The second factor is declining demand on the domestic market because the main consumer - the construction industry - stands basically frozen and customers have low paying capacity today.
Meanwhile, warehouses are overloaded with metal products due to the low demand in the country and because metal traders stockpiled big volumes when the market was on a rise.
"This happened because consumers are unable to pay today. The situation has been aggravated by the political crisis in the country and the continuing outflow of investments," Fedoseev commented.
The way out of the situation is to stabilize the political situation in Ukraine and attract investments, he suggested.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the union of metallurgical plants, Metalurhprom, is concerned over average daily fall of pig iron production by 13.8% or 12,200 tons to 76,000 tons in September, compared to August.
The main cause of the falling demand for metal products on the local and external markets is the growth of prices for energy and raw materials, Metalurhprom reported.
