European production between 2000-2017 against: China, Japan and Nafta
- European production is expected to grow in the coming years, thanks to a domestic market and exports which should grow.
- European production as a whole (West and East) will reach back to its 2007 level in 2017. Western Europe (17 European countries) will not return to its 2007 level until 2018 to 2020, while Eastern Europe (12 new members) will exceed by 2014 its 2007 level. This is due to the movement of production that continues in Western Europe to Eastern Europe. Indeed, plant openings and production capacity increases in the East. This contrasts with plant closures and production capacity reductions in the west of the continent. But starting from 2016-2017, several models manufactured in the East are expected to be relocated to the West (mainly in Spain).
- According to our forecast, European production will remain higher between 2013 and 2017 than that of the NAFTA region (USA, Mexico and Canada) but lower than that of China.
- Japan should experience a very low production growth untill 2017. Russia is also expected to experience weak growth in production. Global growth should mainly be driven by the ASEAN countries (mainly Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia).
