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Article: Construction equipment in Europe: reaching the bottom in 2003? (Forecast 2003).
- Article from:
- Diesel Progress North American Edition
- Article date:
- December 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Diesel & Gas Turbine Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Against a forecast for European construction equipment demand to fall 9 percent to around 135,000 units in 2002, the drop is now more likely to be 13 percent, to 129,000 units. The outlook for 2003 is for further decline of about 3 percent to around 125,000 units. At that level the European market should have bottomed out.
Growth of around 5 percent a year in 2004 and 2005 may be expected in a cyclical industry with heavy dependency on machine replacement. The last peak was in 2000 and by the middle of this decade part of those sales will need replacement.
Among reasons for the continuing decline is that European demand grew exceptionally strongly ...