Group Management Report Corporate Governance Environment, Safety, and Corporate Social Responsibility Consolidated Financial Statements 41 expected in the market environment. From this, strategic measures are derived enabling us to react to expected developments at an early stage. These measures, developed in the strategic planning process, not only include fields of activity on current sales markets, but also concrete goals and planning steps for entry into new fields of business or application areas and changes in the portfolio of business activities. The decisions taken within the framework of strategic planning enter into our subsequent medium-term finan- cial planning. The latter delineates our growth and profitability goals for the coming three years and the effects of the expected business development on ALTANA’s asset and financing structure. This can be used to derive possible measures for our financing strategy. Our medium-term finan- cial planning is supplemented by scenario analyses, which transparently reflect the sensitivities of the key performance indicators to relevant, cyclical changes in the market envi- ronment. From this, we derive levels of reaction for possible countermeasures. During a fiscal year, the financial planning for the current year is updated several times within the framework of so-called forecasts. This serves to assess and control short-term business developments and to see whether we have achieved our goals. Business Development General Business Setting Overall Economic Situation In 2015, the global economy did not develop as dynamically as in the preceding years. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the world economy grew by 3.1 % last year (previous year: 3.4 %). The weaker growth was primarily due to the economic slowdown in the emerging countries, which are an important driver of the global economic development. The established economic regions steadily improved their economic performance in 2015. The key economic indicators in the sales regions important for ALTANA’s business developed non-uniformly in the year under review. In Europe, the positive trends stabilized, and the IMF estimates the economic growth in the Euro zone to be 1.5 % (previous year: 0.9 %). The growth was primarily due to the improved situation in the southern countries, partic- ularly Italy, France, and Spain. The German Federal Office of Statistics estimates that Germany’s economic performance improved at about the same rate as in the previous year, increasing by 1.7 % (previous year: 1.6 %). The Russian eco- nomy is forecast to have declined by 3.7 %, following a slight increase in the previous year. According to current IMF forecasts, the economic dynamics in the countries of the Americas were very heterogeneous in 2015. Similar to the previous year, the U.S. economy developed favorably, achieving average growth of 2.5 % in 2015. Mexico’s economy also grew by 2.5 %. The economic performance of Canada, however, slackened considerably vis-à-vis the previous year (2.5 %), increasing by only 1.2 %. In Brazil, South America’s largest economy, the economic output actually fell by 3.8 % according to the IMF (previous year: + 0.1 %). In Asia, China’s economic downswing continued in 2015. The IMF forecasts 6.9 % growth for the country, by far Asia’s largest economy, after 7.3 % in the previous
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