International Coatings Scene
EUROPE
BY SEAN MILMO
EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT
MILMOCW@RODPUB.COM
Slow growth to recovery
European
paint makers
have seen
sales rise in
the first half
of the year,
but raw
material price
increases
continue to
put pressure
on profit
margins.
The European coatings market is show- ing clear signs of a recovery from the recession, according to the financial
results of the region’s coatings companies for
the first half of 2010.
Nonetheless there are considerable doubts
in the sector about whether the momentum
behind the recovery will last, particularly
since the extent of the revival in demand is
by no means uniform across Europe.
“There is only a slow recovery in the market while the outlook is still rather uncertain,” said Erkki Jaervinen, president and
chief executive of Tikkurila, the Finnish-based coatings producer.
The most buoyant market has been Germany
where the country’s GDP grew by 2.2 percent in
the three months to June, the fastest quarterly
growth in 20 years. This has been mainly
because the lower euro, particularly against the
US dollar, has boosted its exports.
The association of the German paint and
printing inks industry (VdL) had forecast in
May that output of the country’s coatings
companies would rise by 1.4 percent this year
while turnover would go up by 3. 6 percent.
“Because of the growth in the German economy we’ve now revised those figures to a 2.7 percent rise in output—slightly higher than the official forecast of a 2.5 percent increase in GDP—
and to a 5.1 percent rise in turnover,” said
Michael Bross, VdL’s head of public relations.
However even German coatings companies
are worried about the possibility of a slowdown in exports because of a dip in the global economy and the threat of more financial
turmoil among the southern member states
of the European Union after a debt crisis in
Greece earlier this year.
In many parts of Europe coatings sales took
off in the first quarter of this year and contin-
ued to surge ahead for much of the second quar-
ter. But by the middle of the year there were
indications that demand was flattening out.
