3 Glass Factories Completely Stopped Due To Rising Natural Gas Prices

The Glass of Ukraine association of glass industry enterprises states that due to the increase in natural gas prices, 3 glass industry enterprises have already completely stopped, and the rest have entered the stage of technological downtime in order to prevent a complete shutdown of furnaces.

Ukrainian News Agency learned this from a statement of the association on Facebook.

"The catastrophic rise in the price of natural gas, which is up to 50% of the cost of glass products, has devastating consequences for the entire industry of the real sector of the Ukrainian economy, since there is a rapid objective increase in the final price of Ukrainian products," the statement reads.

According to the statement, another negative factor critical for the domestic glass industry is a significant dumping import of glass products to Ukraine from countries where energy prices for industry are sometimes almost ten times lower. 

It is noted that in such a situation, the products of Ukrainian companies become uncompetitive both in the domestic and international markets.

Besides, the association clarified that the enterprises of the glass industry in Ukraine, which employ more than 12,000 people, are rapidly becoming unprofitable and are actually at the stage of bankruptcy and complete closure.

In connection with the current situation in the glass industry of Ukraine, the association appealed to the Cabinet of Ministers.

In the appeal, the association notes that it is necessary to implement a set of urgent cardinal measures that would stabilize the situation and stop the deepening of the crisis: 

- development and implementation of a targeted program to support glass industry enterprises in Ukraine, including by providing them with preferential anti-crisis loans;

- creation of a trust fund for the formation of natural gas price compensators for Ukrainian glass producers for the period of the crisis;

- providing glass industry enterprises with access to auctions for the sale of natural gas at preferential prices;

- the application of non-tariff regulation measures in the form of non-automatic licensing of operations for the import of glass products into the territory of Ukraine and the introduction of an anti-dumping duty.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in late December, the Interdepartmental Commission on International Trade launched a special investigation into the import of certain types of cheese into Ukraine, regardless of the country of origin and export, as well as an anti-dumping investigation into the import of glass containers into Ukraine originating from the Republic of Belarus.

In April 2019, the Cabinet of Ministers included glass containers in the list of goods from Russia prohibited from being imported into Ukraine.