MOSCOW (MRC) -- Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russian Federation keeps investigating the case of cartel agreement in the PVC market. The executive department has begun interviewing clients of Russian SPVC makers, report MRC analysts.
FAS brought an action for violation of antimonopoly legislation against Russian PVC makers (PLASTKARD, KAUSTIK, SayanskKhimPlast), suspecting them in cartelization. The United Trading Company, Sibmanagement Group have also fallen under suspicion of FAS.
In August Russian converters started to receive letters from FAS with the request to answer a few questions regarding operating conditions and to provide information on purchases of PVC from these companies during the period of 2004-2006. Many converters, in their turn, do not share FAS’s opinion as regards cartel agreement in the PVC market.
SPVC market before the crisis year of 2008 was one of the most dynamically developing markets of large polymers in the Russian Federation. In the period of 2000-2008, the average annual growth of demand for suspension PVC in Russia made 24%. In 2004, Russian makers produced about 492 thousand tonnes of SPVC, in 2006 this index made about 545 thousand tonnes. Import share in 2004 amounted to about 1% and in 2006 it rose up to 18%. In their turn, on the back of high demand in the domestic market Russian makers slashed export of suspension from 121,6 thous. tonnes in 2004 to 544 tonnes in 2006.
MRC