Integrierte Vermeidung und Verminderung der Umweltverschmutzung

1.2 Sector structure
Chapter 1
Available statistics show that the EU-15 FDM sector comprises close to 26000 companies, most
of which have over 20 employees.
The EU-15 FDM sector is exceptionally diverse compared to many other industrial sectors. This
diversity can be seen in terms of the size and nature of companies; the wide range of raw
materials, products and processes and the numerous combinations of each, and the production of
homogenised global products as well as numerous specialist or traditional products on national
and even regional scales. The sector is also subject to very diverse local economic, social and
environmental conditions, and varying national legislation.
The EU-15 FDM industry is quite fragmented. Approximately 92 % of the sector is made up of
SMEs, although there are some sectors, such as sugar manufacturing, which have very large
installations. This fragmentation and diversity, as well as divergent data collection systems in
individual MSs, makes it difficult to ascertain exact figures for the sector as a whole.
The sector is spread all over Europe, in very industrialised regions as well as in rural areas.
Traditionally, industrial production has been closely related to primary production, climate, and
natural resources, e.g. land and water, along with the actual requirements of the particular
production technique. These heavily influence the structure and geographical location of
specific industrial production. Although this kind of dependence is being reduced, it still holds
true in many sectors. For example, some sectors are still concentrated in special regions, e.g.
fish processing is usually found in countries, or regions which have direct access to the sea and
traditions of fishing, and olive oil is mainly manufactured in Mediterranean countries, especially
in Andalucia in Spain. Other activities such as sugar production/refining, grain milling and dairy
industries are found in all countries. Some FDM production activities have special requirements
of the natural resources, such as the need for receiving waters for the discharge of large volumes
of treated waste water. Sugar installations, refineries and fruit and vegetable preservation
installations are normally situated near to water, for this reason.
1.3 Trade
For many companies, exporting their product out of Europe is an important part of their
business. In 2001, the EU-15 FDM sector exports amounted to EUR 45000 million, which
represented 79 % of European global exports of agricultural and FDM products. This is a slight
decrease over 1998 figures.
The main export market for European FDM products is the US. The Japanese, Swiss and
Russian markets are also significant. The top export destinations of EU-15 FDM products in
2001, in financial terms, are shown in Table 1.4.
Export destination EUR million
United States 9085
Japan 3716
Switzerland 2617
Russia 2569
Canada 1361
Poland 1157
Norway 1030
Australia 776
Czech Republic 767
South Korea 741
Algeria 721
Israel 528
Turkey 425
Total 25493
Table 1.4: Top export destinations of EU-15 FDM products in 2001 (EUR million)
[3, CIAA, 2001]
RHC/EIPPCB/FDM_BREF_FINAL January 2006 3