Europe looking up, North America staying down

摘要

John Wadsworth's company, Intermark, has once again researched the particleboard industry in Europe and North America for 2009 and we present those results here, together with analysis of 2010 and the prospects for the future. After the very downbeatreport on 2008 in last year's survey (WBPI Issue 5, 2009), our survey of 2009 shows some improvement in demand from the third quarter in Europe and earlier curtailments of production were able to be reversed, while some planned further cuts were avoided. There was, however, one closure made in 2009 in the EU15 countries. Short-time working was commonplace again last year, as manufacturers tried to match supply more closely to demand.