2009: a less colourful year for the European paint industry

The demand for paint and printing inks follows the waves of the economic activity. The paint and the printing ink industries in the European Union saw one of the severest drops in demand since many years. European coating manufacturers reported double digit drops. Industrial coatings, which went down between 15 and 25 %, were already severely affected in 2009, whereas automotive coatings were harshly hit with a drop off as important as 30 %. The difficult development in 2009 reflects in the figures reported by industry. Read CEPE’s full article in the upcoming January-issue of European Coatings JOURNAL.