amount of chemical goods produced increased by a substan-
tial 7.7 %.
In the course of the first half of the year, the price of
crude oil fell from around 55 U.S. dollars to below 45 U.S. dol-
lars in June. In the following months, however, the price
rose continuously, reaching its year high of around 67 U.S. dol-
lars at the end of the year. The average price in 2017 was
therefore significantly higher than in the previous year.
Important Events for Business Development
ALTANA’s earnings and financial situation as well as its assets
in 2017 were influenced by non-operating effects.
In March, ALTANA further expanded its business with ad-
ditives solutions for the global plastics market by acquiring
U.S. and German PolyAd companies. The activities were in-
tegrated into the BYK division. Furthermore, the ELANTAS
division was strengthened by the integration of the insulating-
resin business of Solvay at the American site in Olean in
June. In November, ELANTAS expanded even more through
the acquisition of wire-enamels activities in China. These
changes in the Group’s consolidation scope had an effect on
control-relevant key performance indicators.
The acquisition of novel technologies, which are to
be developed to the stage of market readiness in the coming
years, had a decisive influence on the Group’s key perfor-
mance indicators. The acquisition of metallography technol-
ogy from the Israeli company Landa Labs is an example.
In 2017, the development of the exchange rates between
the euro, our Group currency, and other currencies impor-
tant for ALTANA had an impact on sales and earnings development.
The average exchange rate was 1.13 U.S. dollars for
one euro, slightly higher than in the previous year (1.11 U.S.
dollars for a euro). Effects from changed exchange-rate
relations resulted from an increase in the average exchange
rate between the euro and the Chinese renminbi from
7.35 renminbi to 7.63 renminbi.
52 Business Development
the ASEAN-5 economic region also picked up on the posi-
tive trend of the previous year, with growth of 5.3 % (previ-
ous year: + 4.9 %). The IMF expects the performance of
the Japanese economy to improve in 2017, with an increase
of 1.8 % in its gross domestic product compared to the
previous year (+ 0.9 %).
Industry-Specific Framework Conditions
According to estimates by the American Chemistry Council
(ACC), global chemical manufacture increased by 2.5 %
in the past fiscal year, thus achieving higher growth than in
2016 (2.2 %).
In 2017, Germany, Europe’s largest chemical manu-
facturer, increased its production volume by 2.5 %, accord-
ing to estimates by the German Chemical Industry Asso-
ciation, after stagnating in the previous year. The German
chemical industry particularly benefited from a positive de-
velopment of demand in China, as well as from the enhanced
dynamism of the European chemical industry. Sales in the
industry rose by as much as 5.5. % due to rising prices. The
ACC forecasts that other European countries also had a
clearly positive development in chemical production, including
France (+ 4.7 %), Italy (+ 3.6 %), and Switzerland (+ 1.9 %).
According to estimates by the American Chemistry Coun-
cil, the production volume in the U.S. was at the previous
year’s level, however. In Latin America, chemical production
decreased steadily by 1.8 %, despite the attractive overall
economic data.
The chemical sector in the Asia-Pacific region was again
the engine of global growth in the year under review.
The ACC estimates that chemical production in the region
grew by 4.6 %, a considerably higher increase than in
the previous year (+ 3.6 %). All of the important economic
nations in Asia showed a dynamic economic development.
Chemical manufacture in China grew by 5.5 %, while Japan
increased its chemical production by 4.4 %. In India, the