Summary of Annual Progress
0 I am pleased to report another year of progress by the company. This
00 performance has been achieved in the most toughest market conditions we have
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seen for many years yet. It reflects the effort over the past five years that has
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gone into transforming of our company into a highly competitive world-class
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business. Since 2002, we have managed to improve almost double our profits, and if this
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increase in profitability has been placed us at the top of the global glass industry.
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We have managed to succeed this in difficult trading conditions for a number of
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reasons, the most important of which has been from our ability to stay ahead
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of our competitors. We have refused to allow stand still and have continued to bring
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out a number of new products, most of which are already on the sale in our key
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markets. All this goes to confirm that the company"s position as the recognized
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industry leader in technical innovation. We realize that there is still much more to
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be done, but we believe that we know precisely what extra this is and we have
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already put into place organiational and technical changes to bring this about.