Welcome to our December newsletter. We hope you will find this informative and a way of keeping up-to-date with developments in ECMSA. Your EC is continually working to make ECMSA a more effective organisation, representing the marketing and strategy community in the European chemical industry, through unique projects and events.


At the time of writing, Europe is experiencing one of the toughest economic periods in its recent history, and this is having a tremendous impact on the chemical industry. The result has been another wave of downsizing and consequent closure of some facilities in Europe. This is compounded by the rapid growth of manufacturing in Asia and the migration of many of the industry value chains to this region. A further impact which has started to take effect, and is expected to continue well into the second half of the next decade, is the capacity bubble in the Middle East. The mid-to-longer term effect will no doubt result in further rationalisation of Europe’s chemical industry.

Obviously this is not easy, but it is our view that Europe has not been uniquely singled out for rationalisation—the U.S. Gulf Coast has seen numerous closures in the past 12 months. Most of these closures have taken place as a result of sub-world-scale operations, feedstock competitiveness issues, increasing competition from imports and reduced market demand.

Europe still remains an attractive place to do business in the chemical industry but will require careful consideration on the types of activity which will be the most appropriate going forward, given the rapidly changing global dynamics. The strengths that made Europe successful in the past will no doubt enable Europe to continue to play a leading role in the sectors less dependent on feedstock economics and production volumes. Instead, Europe will be able to leverage its highly-integrated clusters, world-class logistics, best-in-class innovation and consumer buying power to ensure a future role in the global chemical industry. We remain encouraged that Europe will continue to grow off its strong base, albeit at a slower rate than we had become accustomed to in the past.

Based on these dynamics, ECMSA has carefully considered its role going forward and has identified a number of strategic projects which look at those value chains which have come under threat from migration to lower cost regions. In total, four Strategic Projects have been selected: the Automotive value chain, Clean Tech (restricted to solar energy and smart batteries), Pharma/Healthcare and Food and Personal Care. Two Projects have kicked off this year—‘Automotive’ with Roland Berger and ‘Clean Tech’ with AT Kearney. ECMSA plans to conduct the remaining two Studies next year with Booz (‘Pharma/Healthcare’) and Accenture (‘Food & Personal Care’).

The initial feedback from industry and attendees at our Networking Dinner held on 27 October in Brussels on the findings from the first two Projects has been positive—these studies are described below. Our Members and other interested parties will have the opportunity to debate the analysis and issues raised by the Projects in two seminar Workshops which are being arranged for March/April 2010.

ECMSA has not neglected the theme of ‘innovation’, on which we have held a number of leading events over the past 3 years. Instead of face-to-face events, this year we have opted for Webinars held on 18 June and 29 October—these are described in more detail in this newsletter. In 2010, ECMSA plans once again to hold a Face-to-Face Innovation Event on 16-17 June. We will be providing more details about this shortly.

ECMSA is very grateful to its loyal Members who have supported us in these tough times. We have done our best to continue delivering value in marketing and strategy to the chemical industry, and we hope that the Strategic Projects and progression of the ‘innovation’ theme demonstrate ECMSA’s commitment to its Members. We intend to further strengthen the Strategic Projects and ‘innovation’ themes in 2010 and look forward to seeing you at our forthcoming events.

Fred du Plessis
President, ECMSA