Investment by Russian companies in plastics processing machinery fell by 26 percent to an estimated $531 million in 2015, according to a report by MRC, a market research consulting group based in Moscow.
Russia's economic crisis started in 2014 and worsened in 2015, when figures from the Federal State Statistics Service show that GDP contracted by 3.7 percent.
The plastics machinery market in Russia is now half the $ 1 billion level it reached in 2008. In 2013 machinery investments totaled $850 million, but this decreased by 16 percent to $717 million in 2014, before the 26 percent decline in 2015, according to MRC.
Injection molding machinery was the segment that was hit hardest last year, with purchases falling by 39 percent from $277 million in 2014 to $169 million in 2015.
Investments in film extrusion lines, in fact, increased in 2015, rising to $146 million from $124 million in 2014.
MRC said: “The positive trend in the [film] sector became possible due, in fact, [to] one investment from Voterfoll Pro company, subsidiary of Megapolis Group. Voterfoll Pro has installed two lines from German producer Dornier for the production of three and five-layer [biaxially-oriented polypropylene] films with 60,000 tonnes per year capacity in Shakhty, Rostov region.”
Investments in compounding lines also continued a positive trend, growing to $42 million in 2015. MRC noted two investments: a ZSK Megacompounder from Coperion was installed by Kazanorgsintez for black polyethylene pipe compounds; a PE compounding line from KraussMaffei for anti-corrosion coating of steel pipes of large diameter was installed by Metaclay.
The downturn in Russia's construction sector impacted extrusion line investments: those for pipe production were $23 million in 2015, down from $34.8 million in 2014, while lines for PVC profiles and panels amounted to $19 million in 2015.
Investments in extrusion blow molding equipment declined to $28 million in 2015 from $59 million a year earlier.
