“And I think my short summary is, from our perspective, we don't expect anything significant in China in 2025. We're not baking in any kind of recovery. I think industrial volumes and activity will remain stable, but flat.”

In context

“ivity come through. On the other hand, a bit of a contrast unfortunately. In Europe, we expect to see continued softening. This is primarily in Western Europe, also a little bit in Eastern Europe, but primarily in Western Europe. The Brazilian end markets will continue to grow. There is a good trajectory there, and we'll expect that at [indiscernible] metals, manufacturing, chemicals, energy, all expected to be softer in lower volumes versus previous year. So Europe, unfortunately, is a drag at the moment. Now as far as Asia Pacific is concerned, I'll start off with China because I know that's on a number of your minds. I was in China 2 weeks ago, spent a week with the team talking to our customers, meeting a number of CEOs and getting a flavor of what I think is going to happen in China. And I think my short summary is, from our perspective, we don't expect anything significant in China in 2025. We're not baking in any kind of recovery. I think industrial volumes and activity will remain stable, but flat. No recovery in any of those sectors. Metals and Mining specifically is likely to be negative year-on-year for a number of reasons, driven partly by demand, but equally by some large turnarounds that our customers are taking in the course of the year. So we kind of see that play in Q1 and Q2. But again, Metals and Mining unlikely to see any growth. The one sector in China that is growing today and will continue to grow is their electronic sector. A lot of energy and a lot of money has been put into that sector by the government as well. So we do expect that, that will play out and continue to see some level of growth. If I was looking at China a bit more broadly, I'd say to you two trends of particular note coming out of my visit. The first that the government has recognized the need for s”