2017 ACA Economic Climate Survey

By Allen Irish

The Fall 2017 survey, i e its recent predeces­sors, found that the industry’s senior leadership holds a relatively optimistic view of both its current situation as well as its prospects over the next year. If the opinions of the industry’s senior business leaders are on target, the coat­ings industry should maintain its trajectory of continued growth in 2018.

ECONOMIC BACkDROP FOR THE ACA SURVEY

Since ending its sharp decline in 2009, the coat­ings industry has seen largely unabated growth. As shown in Figure 1, the overall volume and value of the industry’s output have consistently grown at a roughly 3-4% rate over most of the period following 2010. The National Association for Business
Economics (NABE) compiles a consensus of macroeconomic forecasts from a panel of 50 professional forecasters.

The NABE panel’s September 20J7 outlook is that GDP will average 2.2% growth in 20J7 and 2.4% growth in 2018.1 The steady growth in both volume and value of architectural coatings, in particular, tracks the con ti nu ing recovery in construction since 2010, along with relatively steady growth uf durable goods manufacturing during the recovery. Sales of existing homes, one of the major drivers of
paint demand, have consistently averaged over 5 .2 million units (annualized) for over a year now (as compared with less than 5 million in 20J4).