
Group Management Report Products Safety and Health Environment Human Resources Social Commitment Consolidated Financial Statements 53
include not only 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 financial
planning. The latter delineates our growth and profitabil-
ity goals for the coming three years and the effects of the
expected business development on ALTANA’s
asset and
financing structure. This is used to derive possible measures
for our financing strategy. Our medium-term financial
planning is supplemented by scenario analyses, which transparently
reflect the sensitivities of the key performance
indicators to relevant, predominantly cyclical changes in the
market environment. From this, we derive levels of reaction
for possible countermeasures.
Business Development
General Business Setting
Overall Economic Situation
In 2018, the global economy developed with a momentum
comparable to that of the previous year. The International
Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the world economy grew
by 3.7 % last year (previous year: 3.8 %). But the global
economic conditions steadily deteriorated in the course of the
year. This trend was particularly evident in the established
industrial nations. Both in the Eurozone and in Japan the economic
performance was weaker than in the previous year.
This burden was offset solely by the dynamic development
of the U.S. economy. The emerging countries grew more
strongly than the established economic nations again in 2018.
The key economic indicators in the sales regions important
for ALTANA’s business developed at different levels in 2018.
With expected growth of 1.8 %, the Eurozone posted
significantly lower growth than in 2017 (2.4 %). All of the
important European economies underwent a similar economic
development. According to the IMF, Germany’s economic
growth was particularly subdued. At 1.5 %, it was
well below the good previous year (2.5 %). But the overall
downturn in growth in Europe was also driven by other important
economies in the Eurozone such as France and Italy.
According to current IMF estimates, the economic
dynamic in the countries of the Americas was generally at a
stable level. Only the U.S. economy grew, from 2.2 %
in the previous year to 2.9 % in 2018. This development is
based on a palpable improvement of private consumption
and on companies’ growing inclination to invest. Economic
growth in the important Latin American economies was
at the same low level as the previous year. The Brazilian economy
remained stable, 1.3 % up on the previous year. The
same applies to Mexico and the entire Latin American economic
region.
Growth in Asia was also stable. The growth rate of the
large emerging economic nation China fell from 6.9 % in the