International Copper Association India (ICA India) in association with Hindalco Industries Ltd and Vedanta Ltd organised the prestigious India Copper Forum earlier today in Mumbai. The event brought together experts and thought leaders from the copper fraternity to congregate and deliberate on opportunities, challenges and future of the country with copper.

Since 2000, India’s domestic copper usage has registered a very healthy growth rate which is in-line with the robust GDP growth witnessed by India during the same period. As per ICA India’s estimates, the copper usage in India grew at CAGR of 5.3% from 2006 to 2015 to reach 1.2 million tonnes in 2015. However, India’s per capita copper usage is around 0.8 kg whereas the world average is 3.7 kg, indicates clearly that there is a huge potential for growth.

The event held extensive discussions to evaluate how the copper fraternity is aligning itself to the Government’s vision and contributing to the nation’s progress. Going forward, the estimated copper usage growth is expected to increase as the Government has put in process various initiatives such as Housing for All, Make in India and smart cities to name few.

Speaking on the opportunities and challenges faced by the copper industry, Mr J C Laddha, CEO, Hindalco Copper Division said, “We see tremendous growth potential for copper in India. This will come from sectors like power, telecom, automobile, railway, defence, etc. We are expecting the copper usage to double in India by next decade.”

Mr P Ramnath, CEO, Vedanta Copper added, “The current environment is very encouraging to help boost manufacturing activity in India. The resource capabilities, production technologies and understanding of global market perspective that India has developed over past few decades have paved the way for transformational growth.”

Richard Xu, Regional Director, International Copper Association Asia shared his views on the developments in the copper sector in APAC, “The demand continues to be robust for copper in China. As per ICA estimates 25.6 mn tonnes of copper was added in the 12th 5-year plan of China. This will now increase to 29.2 mn tonnes during the upcoming 13th 5-year plan. Thus there was a healthy growth of 14% of copper usage between these two 5-year plans. A major threat is the substitution of copper, which had peaked in the period 2007-2011, however now this practice is on the decline. On the other hand copper has gained new markets such as in aquaculture for copper enclosure facilities and copper mesh cages; and also in small diameter copper tubes in air conditioning and copper rotor for induction motors.”

Sanjeev Ranjan, Managing Director, ICA India said, “We are hopeful that the industry and the government will work collaboratively to make the country energy efficient and to attain the renewable energy target of 175GW by 2022. ICA India is honored to facilitate this conversation. We look forward to be a part of this vision and contribute in realizing this dream along with all the stakeholders.”

Stressing on the need of adoption of copper Mr Balvender Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Mines, GoI said “In India there is a huge potential in exploration of copper. However, the copper production has not been to the desired level and this is the reason that India imports nearly 80% of copper requirement. I am hopeful that the measures we have taken in the recent past for promoting and facilitating exploration in the country will yield results in the near future and India will become self-sufficient in the coming years.”