Helmut Panke Exchange Quotations

The adverse external factors -- unfavorable exchange rates, high raw-material prices and intense competition -- which we reported from the very beginning of the year have been largely offset by increased sales volume and internal efficiency improvement measures.

The current exchange rate is an improvement, but it's still a challenge for us.

We have a comparable situation as we did have in 2005. The exchange rates are not worse, the raw material prices are not worse, so we basically have the same challenge, but we managed to cope and to compensate (for) most of those challenges in 2005.