BPI.L Regulatory News (BPI)

3 Jul 2008 07:00



British Polythene Industries PLC

 TRADING UPDATE

 3 July 2008

Ahead of the Interim Results for the six months to 30 June 2008, to be announced on 29 August 2008, British Polythene Industries PLC is providing an update on current trading.

We indicated at our AGM on 8 May and in our Annual Report and Accounts that our volumes had been mixed and that our result for the first six months would remain somewhat behind the same period for 2007.  We continue to trade in line with this outlook for the first half and have coped well with yet another difficult period of substantial increases in both oil related raw material and energy costs. We have experienced a downturn in demand from customers in the UK construction sector and parts of our industrial business are quite weak. However, this has been balanced by very sound demand from agricultural and consumer related sectors. 

We have very recently been notified of further substantial increases in raw material costs for July and the late notice from our suppliers will result in margin compression while we pass these costs on to our customers.  We remain confident that, as with the cost increases of the last few years, we will recover margins as prices stabilise.

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