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HIPH - polish steel industry
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Polish Steel Industry 2009
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PPS 2009 - pdf version (20MB)
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Dear Readers,
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Dear Readers,
It is with great pleasure that we submit to you this year's edition of Polish Steel Industry '2009 (Polski Przemysł Stalowy '2009), wherein you will find the performance figures on steel and related industries for 2008. It is issued at the time when steel market is quite complicated and entirely different from the situation in 2007 when steel output and consumption were at record highs.
2008 took everyone aback and by surprise. First nine months were exceptionally good, in every respect, historically highest EBITDA and free cash flows at steel corporations, and very high consumption of finished products. Alas, Q4 2008 saw a collapse. It started off with end users of the following sectors: automotive, home appliances, building and machinery engineering. Immediately, painful decisions were required to be made by steel companies: deep cost cutting measures, adaptation of commercial policies to prevailing market conditions, and production cuts. As a consequence, steel companies have reported red figures, which continue over to early 2009.
Market recovery and steel demand improvement forecasts are, for the foreseeable future, rather dim. However, there is an ever present belief that long-term vision augurs well for steel' glory days coming back.
Poland's bullish scenario, for three years to come, was supposed to be driven by huge investments into building and infrastructural projects, with foreign inward investors from industries relocating their steel-consuming bases to Poland (white goods, car makers, machinery builders and metals fabricators).
Global economic crisis has hit hard such optimistic scenarios. Now, it is only with governmental road infrastructure, hotels and sports facilities projects needed for EURO’2012 that, as we in Poland reasonably hope, will bring increased steel demand.
Dear Readers,
Let me express my deep conviction that the crisis will not dampen your interest in Polish Steel Industry '2009 , which will turn out to be as interesting and useful as previous editions.
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Romuald Talarek
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Chairman |
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Polish Steel Association
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