Reports

The economy still has room to absorb the oil price slump, but a long-term period of low oil prices would hurt. Economic diversification is on the agenda.

A moderate economic rebound is expected in 2016 and 2017, given that the domestic security situation will not again hurt tourism and business sentiment.

As the oil price decrease has a negative impact on government revenues and lending conditions, many businesses face liquidity issues and payment delays.

The chemicals sectors in both Germany and France are scoring well and show robust performance. Still, some challenges lie ahead for both countries.

German non-food retailers struggle to cope with the fast growing market leaders, while the rebound for their Italian peers remains modest.

Payment delays remain a major issue in the British construction industry, while in Belgium the payment behaviour of the public sector remains bad.

Atradius identifies the most vulnerable countries and sectors in Europe to Brexit. The impact will be most acute in Ireland, Netherlands, and Belgium.

Despite a rebound in both the Italian and Spanish construction sectors payment duration is still long and insolvencies levels remain elevated.

In the UK chemicals sector there are high barriers to get into a successful team, while the industry shows a solid performance in Slovakia.

In both countries there are star players within the sector, while some segments are weaker, e.g. in German beverage subsector profit margins decrease.

The ball keeps on rolling for machinery in both countries, but difficulties have increased. The level of protracted payments is high in both markets.

Italy´s chemicals sector is finally scoring at home due to a modest economic rebound, while Ireland has all top pharmaceuticals players in the team.

Despite still robust growth rate of the ICT market in China, challenges are increasing. Competition is getting fiercer, and labour costs are increasing.

Despite overall growth, many French ICT companies face structurally low margins, price pressure and an on-going consolidation process in the market.

The ICT market in the United States is expected to benefit further from stable economic growth. No further decrease in insolvencies expected in 2016.

The pharmaceuticals sector performs very well in both countries. However, the French pharmacy segment faces some troubles due to decreasing margins.

Unless they are well-established in niche products, smaller companies in Germany are expected to continue to be the losers in a cut-throat environment.

The IT spending capacity of SMEs in Italy remains subdued. This may be a consequence of still restricted access to bank loans for smaller businesses.

In the UK, many IT resellers continue to lessen their reliance on hardware sales by offering value added services in order to increase their margins.

The Australian government is driving growth in the IT market through its purchase programme and various initiatives, such as a Cyber Security Strategy.