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Back to news topics | Next news topic FROM THE PRESIDENT
One of the bright spots in Europe is here in the UK where, so far, markets are little changed from last year. Despite the appalling weather and the effects of the foot and mouth epidemic in the first few months of 2001, the UK seems to have got off to a good start. As exporters into mainland Europe, the further weakness of the Euro combined with falling markets is a real concern. Even the bonus of a weak pound against the dollar for those exporting to North America is offset by the sharp market downturn. The benefit of the excellent market statistics available to participating CEA members through CECE and EMI are invaluable at times like this and help to provide vital input for important management decisions. One of the findings of the DTI funded survey into the competitiveness of the UK construction equipment sector was the need to make these key statistics more widely available to members, particularly those in the component supply sector where early warning of changes in demand are vital to efficient management. Your Management Council is mindful of the DTI recommendations and is working on a number of issues raised by the survey. As you will see elsewhere, we now have a smart new CEA logo to go with our new name and image. Our exhibitions team did us proud recently by being runners up in the "best new exhibitors" competition for the CEA stand at SED. I hope that those of you who attended the exhibition took the opportunity to say hello. The stand theme was "It's a jungle out there" and was directed at attracting interest from prospective new members keen to make themselves aware of the complex regulations that exist in our industry. There is a constant need to keep up to date with the latest regulations and being a member of the CEA is the best way to do it. The CEA presence at Bauma 2001 is also worthy of mention. This is the biggest construction equipment exhibition in the world and the CEA broke all records by assisting no less than 125 different British companies in their British Pavilion and other areas of the showground. Hopefully many of the first time attendees will be attracted to join the new Association. Following the Competitiveness Conference at the beginning of March, we have had a further meeting with the SMMT Industry Forum and, as a result, Rob Oliver has put together a proposal to the DTI for financial support for an initial Master Class series. We are hopeful of a positive response since we have a number of members keen to take advantage of this extremely worthwhile scheme. As we look forward to the second half of the year, I hope we will have more opportunities for members to get to know each other and build relationships. We have more and more component supplier members who I hope will take the opportunity to become increasingly involved with the work of the CEA. NEIL ALLEN
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Following
eight years of growth in the total world market for Construction Equipment,
the start of 2001 has seen the beginning of the forecast downturn
in demand.
Buoyant markets in North America over the last few years fuelled by
the growth of rental have been the first to register double digit
falls. However, a number of key European markets have also shown significant
reductions compared to the same period last year.
