As was the case in the first three months of the current financial year, industry performance as a whole remained anaemic during the reporting period. Irrespective of the seasonal downturn generally associated with the first calendar quarter, restrained demand and excess capacity within the area of web-fed printing put paid to any form of recovery. Both demand and price structures failed to improve during the period under review. Thus, we were proved right in our contention that the current industry malaise is anything but a temporary occurrence in the wake of the general economic downturn but, rather, the result of fundamental structural change which has been exacerbated by the severe recession. Our restructuring programme is tailored precisely to these fundamental evolutionary trends.
