Improved construction market conditions
In 2017, the construction industry rebounded as especially residential markets improved in developed economies. This was largely due to robust economic growth, mainly across the Eurozone and North America. The broad-based European economic expansion is expected to continue in the coming year, as it is benefitting from the upturn in other regions of the world.
For 2018, we expect a healthy growth driven by favourable market conditions. We see continued increases in input and logistics costs, which we aim to compensate by productivity and price improvements as well as volume growth. The strong momentum from the second half of 2017 has resulted in an increased capacity utilisation.
