A cautiousn gut feeling

Optimism sounds rather different. No, said Dr Eckhard Keill, managing director of Roto Frank AG, he would not make any explicit forecasts about the future. It seems clear from his statement that the crisis in Europe, whether of debt, the euro or the EU, has shaken him to the core. “We feel that the warnings we gave last year that the upswing is not robust were justified,” said Keill at the company’s sixth press day, which was held in Warsaw last year. Keill sees the financial crisis now working through to the real economy, which inevitably puts a damper on prospects for a successful year in 2012. Nevertheless, he has a cautious gut feeling that 2012 will tend towards the positive. “For us it is a matter of making better progress than the markets in the coming year,” said Keill, “so that we achieve at least slight sales growth.” It goes without saying that he doesn’t expect any growth stimulus from Greece, nor from Spain either. “But the interesting question is how things will develop in France.” He also has certain hopes of Poland and Russia. “Admittedly the Russian market is like a children’s surprise egg: you never really know what will come out of it.” By contrast, Roto’s position in the Polish marketplace is really strong, says Barbara Ahlers, Roto’s director for the North-east European economic area. This includes Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in addition to Poland. According to data from a Polish centre for information, this economic area represented a volume of some 17 mio window units and around 1.2 mio doors in 2010. As by far the biggest market, Poland contributed a good 11 mio windows and 0.7 mio doors to the total. Next came Ukraine (4 mio/0.4 mio), Belarus (1.3 mio/0.1 mio) and the Baltic states (aound 0.6 mio/approx. 0.015 mio). The market in Poland has seen headlong development over the last 20 years. Whereas in 1990 there were just ten state-controlled manufacturers of wooden windows, some 2 000 producers can be found in the Poland of today. A dramatic turnaround in the materials used for the frames has occurred at the same time. While 95 per cent were made of wood in 1990, 85 per cent are of PVC these days. Exports are also becoming increasingly significant for the Polish window industry. As Ahlers reports, 50 per cent of the total production of over 11 mio units now goes abroad. However, at the same time the expert sees a high level of need in the domestic market. “The low new-build rate in Poland…