India imports over 42,000 t of polymers and additives from Russia in 2022, exports13,000 t - expert

MOSCOW. Feb 16 (Interfax) - Bilateral trade in petrochemical products between Russia and India is still rather modest compared to Russia's trade in such products with Turkey and China, the chairman of the Association of Plastic Processors (APP) and vice president of the Russian Chemists Union, Mikhail Katsevman said in a webinar on Russia's polymer processing industry.

Russia exported more than 42,000 tonnes of polymers and additives to India in 2022, while its imports of such products from India totaled about 13,000 tonnes, according to information in his presentation.

"In India, which many are talking about, everything is going exactly the same, but of course the figures of Indian exports of polymers and additives, and imports [...] seem significantly more modest, but what can we say? This, of course, is the very beginning in this case, and India is nowhere near as developed as China in terms of the polymer industry," Katsevman said.

His presentation also cited Russian imports and exports of petrochemical products from and to China and Turkey in the first nine months of 2022. Imports of polymers rose 22% year-on-year to about 300,000 tonnes and imports of finished products topped 400,000 tonnes. Russia, meanwhile, exported about 900,000 tonnes of polymers to China in the nine months, which Katsevman said looks quite good compared to other leading exporters to China - Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Iran.

Russia imported 55,700 tonnes of plastic and 35,800 tonnes of plastic products from Turkey in the nine months. "In other words, this line of our ties with Turkey has only strengthened and continues to strengthen and, I think, will strengthen in 2023. But we, in turn, increased shipments of our polymers to Turkey by almost 39% compared to the previous year," Katsevman said.