World Chemicals Sales - (CHEManager Europe 12/2012): The global chemicals turnover was valued at €2,744 billion in 2011. The European chemicals industry, ­including the European Union and the Rest of Europe, is still in a strong position, posting sales of €642 ­billion in 2011. This is about one-fourth of world ­chemicals sales in value terms, according to the European Chemical Industry Council Cefic. But worldwide competition is getting fiercer, witnessed by the European Union losing its top ranking in terms of sales to China for the third consecutive year. Chemicals sales in Asia are more than double that of the European Union. Europe, Asia and the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) account for 92.5% of world chemicals turnover.

European Market Share
The chemicals industry is one of the European Union's most international, competitive and successful industries, embracing a wide field of processing and manufacturing activities. The output of the chemicals industry, which includes all 27 EU member states, covers a wide range of chemicals products. It supplies virtually all sectors of the economy and provides a significant contribution to EU net exports. But as emerging economies outpace industrial countries in chemicals production the global chemicals production is shifting away from Europe, particularly to Asia. Thus, the EU market share nearly halved from about 36% in 1991 to below 20% in 2011.

EU Chemicals Sales by Nation
Chemicals turnover of the European Union was valued at €539 billion in 2011. Eight countries account for 89% of the EU chemicals production. Germany remains the largest chemicals producer in Europe, followed by France, Italy and the Netherlands. Together, these four countries generated 64% of EU chemicals sales in 2011, valued at €345 billion. The share rises to 89.1%, or €480 billion, when including the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium and Poland. The other 19 EU countries generated 10.9% of EU chemicals sales in 2011, valued at €58 billion, about half of which was attributable to four EU countries - Sweden, Austria, Czech Republic and Finland.

Chemical Sub-Sectors
Among the chemicals produced in the EU countries, petrochemicals, polymers and specialty chemicals account for three quarters of the EU chemicals sales. Output from the EU chemicals industry covers three wide ranges of products: base chemicals, specialty chemicals and consumer chemicals. Base chemicals cover petrochemicals and derivatives and basic inorganics. In 2011, they represented 62.4% of total EU chemicals sales. Specialty chemicals cover the auxiliaries for industry, paints & inks, crop protection, and dyes & pigments (25.3% in 2011). Consumer chemicals are sold to final consumers, such as soaps and detergents as well as perfumes and cosmetics (12.3% in 2011).