This news article was originally written in Spanish. It has been automatically translated for your convenience. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace a human translator. The original article in Spanish can be viewed at Los fabricantes europeos de equipamiento de plástico y caucho prevén incrementar sus ventas en 2006

The European plastics and rubber equipment manufacturers planned to increase its sales in 2006

06/10/2005

on October 6, 2005

According to the results obtained in the survey of Euromap, the participants believed that the benefits of sales for the first half of 2005 were "satisfactory" have fallen from 48 to 46 percent, while companies that consider that obtained sales figures were "not satisfactory" amounted to 25 per cent of 18.

The survey, which is already a key indicator for the industry of manufacturers of machinery for plastics and rubbers in countries as Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and United Kingdom showed that the increase in new orders in Western Europe and most notablyin China were the determinants of such positivism. On the other hand, the survey data indicate that production has been affected by a lack of new orders in more than half (47 percent) of the companies that answered the questionnaire of Euromap.

Prospects for new orders in the second half of 2005 have been positive. While many companies consider that the most important markets (54 per cent expected stagnation in United States, a 46 percent do not expect changes in China and 65 per cent in Western Europe) are more companies who believe will get a positive return. This optimism is more pronounced in the East with nearly one-third of the companies prefiguring growth and less than 10 percent expecting declines.

In regards to the volume of sales, more than half of the participants in the survey of Euromap do not expect any change for the second half of this year. The predictions show less optimism than early estimates of beginning of the year for the same period. 37 Per cent of the companies estimate growth while 16 percent expected a decline of its sales volume.

In the first half of 2006, business confidence is higher, with 41 percent of the companies predicting growth, while just 10 percent expected a decline in sales.