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Chart 7
Table 1
label materials (+1.6%) and aggregate demand for self-adhe-
sive label materials in Eastern Europe continued their role as
driving force of labelstock demand, a role which they have
played for the past 10 years (see charts 6 and 7)
Despite the prudent signs of (slow) recovery and significantly
improved financial conditions on a macro-economic level,
the countries within the Eurozone continued their recession
at the start of the year with their sixth consecutive quarter of
output decline. Even Europe’s ‘export engine’ Germany is
facing a slowdown. Although important progress has been
made in stabilising government finance, government debt in
some countries is unsustainably high and suppressing home
demand.
This cloudy perspective is also depressing the business outlook
for the label industry, as demonstrated by FINAT’s quarterly
trend survey (see chart 5). After the first quarter of 2012,
Interestingly, this overall net increase was entirely attributed
to the growing demand from Eastern Europe (see table 1). In
the case of paper based roll label demand, the net increase in
demand of almost 80 million m2 in the 12 Eastern European
countries offset the net decrease in the other regions by a
factor 2. In the case of non-paper roll label materials, demand
growth in Eastern Europe represented almost 75% of the net
increase in demand across Europe.
OUTLOOK
2013
As this edition of the Yearbook goes to press, we are able to
provide the first quarter’s results for 2013. During these three
months, self-adhesive labelstock demand increased by a
modest 0.4% compared to the first quarter of 2012. Although
this positive result prevented the industry from dropping
back into a European ‘label recession’, it continued the
downward trend in annualised quarterly growth rates since
the third quarter of 2012. As in 2012, demand for filmic roll
Chart 5
Chart 6
64
FINAT YEARBOOK
2013
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