With news that Russia is firmly on Pilkington's short term agenda for overseas investment, Stuart Chambers, GCE, has commented on the company's interim results for 2003, and its outlook for the rest of the year. "As we indicated at the time of the AGM, conditions in most of our major markets remain tough. Despite this, Pilkington continues to make good progress with cost reduction and further improvement in manufacturing performance. Overall, trading is in line with expectations and in the first half year pre-tax profits will be ahead by approximately 10%, partly because results in the first half of last year were adversely affected by extended cold repairs in our float operations. Continued emphasis on free cash flow generation will enable us to report another strong cash performance, in line with our overall objectives."
