KUALA LUMPUR: Lotte Chemical Titan Holding Bhd
(LCT) is optimistic its financial performance in the second half of 2023 (2H23) will improve, supported by the reopening of China’s borders early this year.
President and chief executive officer Park Hyun Chul said although the company had seen a slight uptick beginning in January, the progress, in terms of demand, has been moving slower than expected.
He said market conditions are volatile as there are additional players, the regional gross domestic product growth is slower than expected, as well as cost and inflationary pressures as oil prices increase.
“Oil prices are linked to our feedstock cost as it comprised 80% of the cost. However, we can see that our margin is slowly widening. Thus we expect better performance in 2H23,” he said.
He was speaking on the sidelines of a memorandum of understanding signing ceremony between Lotte Chemical Titan (M) Sdn Bhd and Polymateria Ltd to jointly develop products incorporating next-generation biodegradable plastic resin.
Park said other players in the petrochemical industry are also facing the same situation where the supply and demand cycle is currently on a downturn after previous profitable years. Nonetheless, he believed it would soon make a U-turn and return to normal. — Bernama
