European Containerboard and Corrugated Board Review Outijuntti

摘要

Growth continues, but the road is bumpy In 2014 European economic development was still shadowed by several factors - high public-debt-to-GDP ratio and unemployment rate in several counties, Russian-Ukraine crisis, and rising concerns that the euro zone will slide into a triple-dip recession to name a few. This uncertainty resulted in rather fluctuating industrial production throughout the year, which again was reflected in packaging material demand including containerboard and corrugated board. The year started briskly and the Western European containerboard demand grew nearly three per cent on H1/2014 compared to H1/2013. This was mainly driven by surprisingly well growing manufacturing and agricultural production in Spain and Italy and good market development in Germany especially during the first quarter. Manufacturing and especially domestic demand boosted containerboard in the UK as well whilst the French economy was suffering from weakness of its private sector and containerboard consumption declined by almost one per cent compared to 2013.