Fierce competition, high energy costs and increased uncertainty due to the Brexit decision continue to weigh on the financial strength of many businesses.
Banks are less willing to provide loans to the steel sector, given the high default rate and the recent debt impairment from one big steel manufacturers.
External risk factors for the Mexican steel industry remain the volatility of the currency exchange rate and the impact of international metals prices.
The Dutch steel and metals sector has benefitted from a rebound in the building sector, but at the same time demand from the energy sector has decreased.
Payment Practices Barometer for the Americas (NAFTA and Brazil) shows that 93% of respondents reported late payment from B2B customers over the past year.
In line with the survey average, 91.4% of respondents in Brazil (95.0% in 2015) reported late payment of invoices from B2B customers over the last 12 months.
While the economy is expected to slow down after a robust 4.6% in 2015, the forecast GDP growth rates of 2.5% in 2016 and 2.7% in 2017 are still solid.
Key success factors for Danish machinery businesses is their ability to streamline costsand continued investment in product development/new technology.
Demand for Belgian machines and engineering businesses is still affected by the difficulties some major buyer industries are facing (e.g. construction).
The Swedish machinery industry has shown several years of positive development. Machinery production is expected to grow 2.3% in 2016 and 0.9% in 2017.
Due to the weaker exchange rate and increased demand from overseas markets, Dutch food exports increased in 2015 and are expected to rise further in 2016.
Natural gas prices have fallen significantly in Asia and Europe on the back of the sliding oil price. As more LNG comes on the market regional prices are set to remain low.
Nearly half of the respondents in Australia said that the risk of payment delay and default from B2B buyers has increased over the past six months. One in five respondents rated it as “significant”.
62.0% of the businesses surveyed in China (compared to 46.3% in Asia Pacific) reported that domestic B2B customers have slowed invoice payment due to liquidity problems over the past year.
92.1% of respondents in Hong Kong (compared to 90.2% of respondents in Asia Pacific) reported having experienced invoice late payment from their B2B customers over the past year.
Russia remains an important market in the global economy. The ten principles of the report are meant to help businesses mitigate risks when exporting to Russia.
Thanks to the strong recovery seen since H2 of 2014 many of Italy’s car suppliers have registered increasing profit margins and an improvement of their financial strength.