Rising aluminium costs worry utensil makers

The festive season, one of the peak times for utensil manufacturers, is a few months away, but manufacturers in the Haryana town of Jagadhri are a concerned lot.

Bharat Garg, former president, Federation of All India Aluminum Utensil Manufac-turers Association, says that the sale of aluminum utensils has been affected of late on account of price revision.

Since the last two weeks, prices of aluminum utensils have been revised by 15-20 per cent, which has had an adverse impact on sales. The revision in prices of utensils has been necessitated following a rise in the price of the base metal, aluminium. Garg said the worrying aspect was that the prices of aluminum as per the London Metal Exchange (LME) has moved up by 10 per cent in last three weeks, but in the domestic market the prices has doubled. Jagadhri’s manufacturers mostly rely on primary producers in the country for their aluminum requirement.

 

Tarun Goyal, president, Federation of All India Aluminum Utensil Manufac-turers Association, said that small manufacturers are the ones who are facing the heat due to the volatility observed in prices. “The bigger players can hedge or exercise other options to prevent themselves from getting hurt, but smaller players can’t avoid it.”

Goyal said that since the delivery time of the metal from LME warehouses has now moved up to six months, premium was being charged by the primary producers in the domestic market.