Years of plenty are over

The market research institute Interconnection in Vienna is forecasting a decline in the European windows market of 9.8 per cent for 2009. The windows industry in eastern Europe has been hit particularly hard, with a contraction of 26 per cent in Russia, as much as 30.7 per cent in Lithuania, 14.5 per cent in Hungary and 5.5 per cent in Poland. Western Europe is also battling with a shrinking market. Spain has reported a decline of 31 per cent, and France a fall of 10.1 per cent. Market researchers do not expect to see any noticeable recovery on the broad front until 2011. Positive stimuli are generated above all by trends towards energy-saving measures and low-energy houses.