Pipelife: Worst quarter in four years on pipe market

Plastic pipes producer Pipelife Romania, local subsidiary of the Pipelife group, which is a joint venture of Solvay (Belgium) and Wienerberger (Austria), deems the first three months of this year to have been among the weakest for the pipe industry in four years, which has been mainly affected by postponement or cancellation of real estate projects, as well as by the lack of an infrastructure investment programme coming from the state. "The pipe market fell significantly in the first quarter of the year, mainly due to the liquidity shortage, which principally affects small and medium-sized firms, be they producers or distributors. All of this came on top of the real estate market crash, which caused many developers to freeze works. Lacking a concrete programme of investments in infrastructure, we recorded our weakest quarter in the last four years," said Petru Avram, general manager of Pipelife Romania, local subsidiary of Hungarian group Pipelife. The company posted a 54 million-RON (14.6 million-euro) turnover last year, up 15% on 2007.