The aluminium and packaging firm will wait before starting trading in plastics. The LME has brought many benefits to aluminium and packaging company Alcoa, according to Kevin Anton, president of Alcoa Materials Management.

The company, which has a plastics and aluminium packaging business which generated revenues of $3.2bn (E2.5bn) in 2004, is assessing the start of plastics futures trading on the LME from this Friday. At an LME seminar in London yesterday, he said: “We will be more on the sidelines watching the market evolve and picking our timing. I think it won’t be long before we get involved, but it won’t be this Friday either.”