Market developments, trends, outlook and challenges
After six years of continuous growth, the European production volume of GRP stagnated for the first time last year. In the current year 2020, the European GRP market is experiencing the sharpest slump since the economic and financial crisis of 2008/2009.
The production volume fell by 12.7% to 996,000 tons. This massive decline is primarily due to the coronavirus/SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, which has been ongoing since February of this year, including in Europe. The transportation sector was initially hit particularly hard, especially the automotive and aviation segments. However, almost all areas of application are now affected to varying degrees by the corresponding losses.
In regional terms, the southern European countries and the UK/Ireland are suffering particularly badly from the downturn. Germany and the designated Eastern European countries are less affected, although the volume is also declining in these countries.