LONDON (ICIS) -- European chemical stocks fell on Wednesday after eurozone finance ministers agreed that stronger support was needed from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help tackle the zone's debt crisis.
At 10:16 GMT, the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx Chemicals index was trading down by 0.40%, as shares in many of Europe's major chemical companies dropped slightly. Swiss specialties maker Clariant was trading down by 0.89%, while Germany's chemical major Bayer was down by 0.31%.
German specialty chemicals maker LANXESS was trading down by 1.09%, and France-based chemical major Arkema had fallen by 0.89%. Norwegian fertilizer major Yara International was trading down by 5.70%. Finance ministers from the 17-member eurozone met in Brussels on Tuesday to agree a plan for increasing the region's bailout fund and tackling the eurozone debt crisis.
However, investor confidence was hit as plans to increase the bailout fund to ┬1,000bn ($1,333bn) were said to be unlikely to be achieved, while ministers agreed that the IMF would need to play a bigger role in the debt crisis.
At 10:16 GMT, the UK's FTSE 100 was trading 0.31% down on its previous close. Germany's DAX was down by 0.70% and the CAC 40 in France was down by 1.10%.
The Polymers Summit ICIS-MRC - 2011 has started today, on Nov, 30 in the Ritz-Carlton Moscow. The main topics of the reports were devoted to the development of petrochemical market and the strategy in the market of base polymers as well as launching new polymer productions.