Demand for Vetropack’s glass packaging remained stagnant in the first six months of 2024, although there were signs of improvement.
With net sales from goods and services of CHF444.9 million (prior year: CHF 477.9 million), the Vetropack Group posted a downturn of 6.9% year-on-year.
It said: “Some degree of stabilisation is discernible in our core markets, but there can-not be any talk of a general recovery as yet.
“For these reasons, we are not anticipating growth in the second half either; in fact, we continue to expect the full-year result for 2024 to be lower than in the previous year.”
It said in the first half of 2024, this situation was manifested by a high number of line downtime days.
“In order to counteract overcapacity and thus avert a potential decrease in prices, we temporarily took capacities out of operation or – as happened at our site in Kyjov – brought them back into operation later than planned.”
It said the remainder of 2024 will be challenging, despite the slight increase in demand for glass packaging.
However capacity is under-used at its production facilities. It expects prices to remain tense given the given the high level of competition and the excess capacities in the market.
It also plans to invest in a furnace construction project at its Croatian facility which it said was a necessary investment that could not be postponed
Issues of concern include a new EU packaging directive (PPWR, Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation) which is changeover from non-binding national guidelines to an EU-wide law that defines refill and recycling quotas, which will have a major impact on our market environment.
It also added that the ongoing war in Ukraine remains at the centre of its attention.
