Against a backdrop of the increased globalisation that has rapidly taken hold over the last twenty years, it is a topic followed very closely by economic stakeholders in all the industrialised nations. That can be mainly explained by the rise in power of emerging countries, notably the central and eastern European states, India, Brazil and, above all, China.
Overall, assuming that overseas economies will recover in 2003, albeit only at a moderate pace, the increase in exports will accelerate and the uptrend in production will resume sooner or later, which in turn will initiate the momentum for a recovery.