Page 18 - Professional Parquet July 2013

MARKET
THE SURVEY
We are resilient entrepreneurs!
The European Parquet industry of the Union is experiencing great difficulties, both economic and financial. Despite everything, however,
our business owners have been able to maintain their positions.
And the parquet continues to delight. All data from the last FEP Congress FEDERICA FIORELLINI
We were a little less than the usual in Brussels, on last June 7th, with the occasion of the 57th General Assembly of FEP (European Federation of the Parquet Industry), an annual event that we try not to miss, as it always provides us a useful contribution in order to ana- lyze and monitor the current trend of the market. A little less attendance, as we said (we are in times of spending review!), and a climate a little darker.
"We have not noticed yet the retake to which European authorities refer - start- ed off the FEP President Lars Gunnar An- dersen - markets are increasingly fragile, just as the banks."
Then, it is normal that the growth fore- casts made by the Federation earlier this
year, for the occasion of Domotex trade fair in Hanover, have been revised down- wards. The consolidated data provided by the member companies and the na- tional associations in fact indicate that the parquet market is still not showing signs of the much-anticipated recovery.
Few numbers (we leave it to the tables that illustrate the service for detailed da- ta)? Compared to 2011, the global con- sumption of wood flooring in Europe fell by 5.88%
The total production in the FEP territory however fell by 4.7%, for a total volume of 68,266,133 square meters. The total Eu- ropean production (including EU coun- tries not belonging to FEP) is estimated at about 75 million square meters.