Business News
Metsos Annual General Meeting, March 30, 2011: President and CEO Matti Kähkönens review
Thursday 31. March 2011 - At Metso Corporations Annual General Meeting starting today at 3:00 pm, President and CEO Matti Kähkönen reports that the development of Metsos operating environment during the early part of the year has continued in line with the companys expectations.
“In conjunction with the publication of the financial statements on February 3, 2011, we estimated that the gradual recovery will continue in most of our customer industries this year. The development of the markets supports this view: the beginning of the year has been favorable for us in terms of new orders”, President and CEO states.
“During the first months of 2011 our services business has developed well due to the improving capacity utilization rates of our customers. What is more, our customers have made decisions on some larger projects”, Matti Kähkönen comments.
“Uncertainties in the generally favorable outlook are created by e.g. the fragility of economic recovery in developed markets and stronger inflation pressures. On the positive side, demand in emerging markets remains steady, the outlook in the mining industry continues to improve and the demand for services is expected to remain strong in all our businesses.”
Matti Kähkönen continues: “Already today Metsos position in the markets is strong and our financial situation and strategy are on solid footing. We are well positioned to benefit from the global megatrends. Favorable economic development in emerging markets not only supports the demand for metals, energy and other infrastructure solutions, and paper and board, it also offers us excellent opportunities. Our strong position in services is based on long-term customer relationships and our extensive installed equipment base, and we are continuously developing our services portfolio. Global concern about environmental issues and sustainability creates demand also for our eco-efficient solutions and for the life-cycle services supporting them. So our strategic focus areas offer us excellent growth opportunities also in the future.”