British Polythene Industries (BPI) has said that it is expecting its profits for the first half of the year to be higher than that recorded during the same period of the previous year.

The company indicated that it is expecting higher earnings due to lower costs and strong sales in the agricultural sector. The company said in a trading update that the agricultural films markets remained strong and it compensated for lower volumes in other sectors. The company is expecting improved earnings even as it faced a slow beginning of the year due to a colder than normal season.

BPI supplies more than 275,000 tonnes of polythene products to its customers and its recycling plants reprocess more than 80,000 tonnes of waste from industrial, commercial, agricultural and domestic sources in the UK. The company is expecting its overall sales to be similar to that recorded during the first half of the year in 2012.

The company said in a statement, "As indicated at the time of the AGM on 9 May 2013, we anticipated the first half would produce a good result. We can now confirm that we expect an outcome comfortably ahead of the comparative period in 2012. This underpins our confidence in current market expectations for the full year."

The company will announce the results for the first six months of the year in August.