The companies in the hardware and industrial supply sector, bathroom and kitchen equipment, and ventilation and air conditioning systems of amec have met to evaluate the end of 2020 and share their forecast with respect to 2021. In 2020 there has been a rebound in the Home reforms, driven among other motivations by the greater time that citizens have spent at home as a result of confinement and the pandemic, and the accumulated savings of families due to the inability to travel. However, it has not been enough to offset the effects of the crisis. The companies estimate that they have had an average drop in turnover of 11% in 2020 and expect a slow but steady natural market recovery throughout 2021, especially from the second half of the year. In this sense, for this year they have prepared starting budgets similar to those of 2020, focused on recovering what was lost and equalizing 2019 results.
The year that begins is characterized by prudence and readjustments and is aimed more at maintaining figures than at growth. The companies are confident that there will be no new closings of the activity and see how the diversification of new sales sectors will be one of the key factors in the growth of the companies. 2021 is also seen as a year of great challenges for Spanish industry and for the sector in particular. Given the maintenance of mobility problems, internationalization efforts will be concentrated in the countries that maintain the best demand quotas. In parallel, the sector is betting on B2B and B2C marketplaces.
Companies are concerned about the rise in the price of raw materials from Southeast Asia, and especially those from China, which consequently causes an increase in the prices of final products. At the same time, they are very concerned about the functioning of supply chains and the new barriers to trade, which have doubled logistics costs and are causing stockouts more and more frequently. Due to the effects of an increasingly prolonged pandemic, another fear for this year is that there may be a contraction in demand.
Companies have expressed doubts about the distribution of European recovery funds and that these reach industrial SMEs and consider it necessary to revalue the industry in front of public administrations so that it can exercise its role of stimulating the economy and guarantee that be strong and diversified.
In this sense, amec emphasizes the need to put into practice the 10 great measures essential for the reactivation and transformation of the industry that it proposes in the document Keys for the change of the production model, in which more than 50 experts and internationalized industrial companies and presented to administrations throughout 2020 in view of the need to carry out policies so that the industry can be an engine of recovery and guarantor of a solid and diversified economy.
At the same time, it defends the role of industry through the Positive Industry movement, which is gaining more and more adhesions from companies and organizations throughout the ecosystem.
