Alro hindered by USD stagnation

Alro Slatina should have seen much better 2003 financials almost effortlessly as a result of the increase in the aluminium price from $1,280/tonne in 2002 to nearly $1,500/tonne worldwide this year. The aluminium quote increase, however, was almost cancelled out by the stagnation of the dollar – the benchmark currency for Alro (which exports more than 75% of its output), on the Romanian market. The company, which is the only Romanian aluminium producer, logged 7,992bn ROL ($242 million) in total revenues for the first nine months of this year, about the same as in the corresponding period of 2002. The profit, however, moved up slightly from 961bn ROL ($29 million) to 999bn ROL ($31 million). ZF