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

　　34 seen for many years yet. It reflects the effort over the past five years that has

　　35 gone into transforming of our company into a highly competitive world-class

　　36 business. Since 2002, we have managed to improve almost double our profits, and this

　　37 increase in profitability has been placed us at the top of the global glass industry.

　　38 We have managed to succeed this in difficult trading conditions for a number of

　　39 reasons, the most important of which has been from our ability to stay ahead

　　40 of our competitors. We have refused to allow stand still and have continued to bring

　　41 out a number of new products, most of which are already on the sale in our key

　　42 markets. All this goes to confirm that the company's position as the recognised

　　43 industry leader in technical innovation. We realise that there is still much more to

　　44 be done, but we believe that we know precisely what extra this is and we have

　　45 already put into place organisational and technical changes to bring this about.