Tajikistan's Talco reduces aluminum output by half in H1
DUSHANBE. July 25 (Interfax) - Talco, Tajikistan's state aluminum company, reduced aluminum production by 47% year-on-year to 61,000 tonnes in the first half of 2014, Industry and New Technology Minister Shavkat Bobozoda said at a press conference on Friday.
"There are objective reasons for the reduction of aluminum production that are partly related to declining world prices for this metal," Bobozoda said.
He said the government has set up a "working group to develop a program to improve the operations of the aluminum company."
"We intend to annually increase the volume of aluminum processing inside the country for production of aluminum vessels, cables, aluminum windows and the like. The capacity of these production facilities will gradually increase, which will give a push to the growth of production of the metal," Bobozoda said.
It was reported earlier that, according to the Industry Ministry, Talco would continue to reduce production in 2014 and produce no more than 150,000 tonnes of primary aluminum, 30.7% less than in 2013. However, actual production will apparently be even lower than this forecast.
Talco saw output plummet 20.6% in 2013 to 216,369 tonnes due to the drop in aluminum prices. Talco expects it will continue to cut output in 2014, producing no more than 150,000 tonnes, or 30.7% less than in 2013.
Tajikistan exported $388.9 million worth of aluminum last year, 30.1% less than in 2012. Aluminum accounted for 33.4% of the country's exports, down from 40.9%.
Aluminum exports tumbled 49.6% year-on-year to $109.2 million in the first half of 2014, and the metal's share of total exports shrank further, to 21%.
The state-owned Talco, built in 1975 with French technology, is central Asia's biggest smelter and is capable of producing 517,000 tonnes of aluminum per year. The smelter used to be known as Tadaz, and became a unitary enterprise in April 2007.