Prospects for 2008

Based on my personal observations, the global growth in 2008 will inevitably slow.

In the USA declining house sales, construction and prices, rising inventories and foreclosures, are leading to layoffs in the building, mortgage and associated service sectors. This, in turn, has caused a drop in consumer and business confidence. In fact, the US Consumer Confidence Index dropped again in October 2007. It now stands at 95.6, down from 99.5 in September. Will this all lead to a more prolonged downturn?

Business confidence in Europe and the UK is eroding: the economies are likely to move to neutral. However, Asia and the emerging economies are taking over as the locomotives of growth; a fact recognised in the extraordinary performance of their equity markets in the past year.

What about Tube and Pipe Industry

The machine sales in USA have slowed down during this year. This is inline with the present economic development in the country. In Europe, on the otherhand, I have not seen such a drop what comes to machinery investments.

5 Milloin visitors at TubeNet

One important milestone was reached during November 2007: 5 Milloin visitors. It should be understood that this figure means visitors - not hits that are often referred. Number of hits may be 5-10 times higher, because single visitor makes lots of hits depending on how many pages are opened during the visit.

Cheers my friends

Juha