It’s January. April is a couple of months away. Skies are grey. But 2007 is going to be a good year, according to IFS2007, a seminar run by analysts Future Horizons in London this week.
World GDP will grow 4.9 per cent this year. The average price of oil will be $54 a barrel. The weakening US economy is having less and less effect on the economies of the rest of the world.
The electronic equipment industry will grow 6 per cent in 2007, the chip industry will grow 12 per cent in $s, and 8 per cent in units, chip prices will increase for the next 18 months to three years, capacity spending is trending down, so oversupply is unlikely.
Even the Japanese market will show 4.6 per cent growth in 2007 and over half of that market is now supplied by foreign companies.
That should be enough to dispel the wintertime blues.