Japanese Aluminium market hit hard by meltdown

NEW DELHI: Global meltdown is set to hit the primary aluminium market also. A hint for this came recently when Japanese trading houses Mitsubishi Shoji Light Metal Sales and Sumitomo Corporation reported that primary aluminium market is likely to be hit hard in 2009 by the global economic slowdown. Big trading houses forecast Japan’s primary aluminium demand for 2009 will fall 5 to 9% from 2008 due to bleak outlooks for the automotive and construction sectors. Mitsubishi said its forecast was down 5.9% and Sumitomo down 8.7% from 2008. Moreover, both said Japan would show highest negative growth of any aluminium market in the world. Mitsubishi forecast Japanese demand at 2.25 million tonnes in 2009, down from 2.39 million tonnes in 2008 and Sumitomo at 2.1 million tonnes in 2009, down from 2.3 million tonnes in 2008. Both forecast North American demand to fall 4.6 to 4.8% in 2009 to 5.2 to 6 million tonnes, and European demand to fall 2.2 to 2.7% to 7.1 to 8.8 million tonnes. Mitsubishi projected 2009 global demand edging down 0.3% to 38.63 million tonnes, while Sumitomo saw it picking up a marginal by 0.1% to 39 million tonnes.