Chart supplied by European Plastics Converters Association (EUPC).

European Plastics Progress Levels
After Record 2000

After a sparkling performance in 2000, the rate of growth in the European plastics industry fell sharply, according to an economic report prepared by the European Plastics Converters association (EuPC). The report projects improvement this year and next as consumer and business confidence grows, which in turn will stimulate demand and inventory requirements. EuPC also says demand from the construction sector will be slower to recharge.
        Although troubled by escalating labor costs, Germany leads Europe in both processing industry sales (36.9 billion euros) and employees (278,000), according to the most recent available data. But Belgium appears to have the most efficient operations, leading in the always-important sales-per-employee category with 241,000 euros per worker. The United Kingdom with 6,020 and Italy with 5,300 are the leaders in number of processing companies. However, the EuPC study says Europe as a whole lags behind the U.S. and Japan in terms of output per employee.

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