Difficult times for the Indian processing industry

The Indian processing industry is going through a difficult period, mainly on account of the worsening trend shown in recent months by two critical factors: polymer prices (which have increased by around 25-30%) and the state the rupee, whose progressive weakening is affecting exports. This is what emerged in a recent declaration by the president of the All India Plastics Manufacturers Association.
All this is exacerbated by the fact that the high level of interest rates is not helping companies to gain access to credit, and they are also seeing the domestic market threatened by imports of cheap manufactured goods, especially from China; for this reason, the above association has called on the government to raise import duties to 20%. The auto parts sector is currently one of the hardest hit.
According to Istat data, the value of Italian plastics and rubber processing machinery exports to India in the first six months of 2013 fell just short of 20 million euro, a figure that is 16% down on the same period in 2012. Sales of extruders were strong (worth around 4.6 million euro), as were sales of flexographic printers (3.6 million) and thermoforming machines (just under 2 million).