31.12.2016

Happy New Year

As 2016 comes to an end many of us will sigh a breath of relief and hope that 2017 will be a better one - not that 2016 was all bad. Certainly it was, tougher than expected in some areas but better than anticipated in others and the mindless terrorist violence continued, while millions suffered a dreadful and harrowing year in the Middle East.

It has also been a year in which we have lost more great and eminent people than usual, both in the world at large and in the industries we cover. Politics caused a number of shocks, the effects of which we will see over the next few years. They also promise to make 2017 an interesting year. Hopefully they will cause a backlash that brings the world closer together rather than dividing it and taking it to a darker place as first fears seemed to indicate. We kick off with a truce that seems to be holding in Syria, and Russia deciding against the usual Tit for Tat diplomacy with the USA – both promising indicators.

If you need a few reminders of both the good and the not so good things that happened in our industry over past 12 months, we will publish our ‘Look back at 2016’ feature in the January issue of Cranes & Access which will also be available online of course.

As far as Vertikal.Net, readership continued to grow and during the year we posted 1,623 individual news stories on the English site - along with a similar number on our German language service -with over 4,000 photographs.

2017 is a Conexpo year, which along with the change in government will hopefully give the crane and access markets a bit of a kick start.

On behalf of all of us here at the Vertikal Press I would like thank you for your support in 2016 and to wish you a very happy, healthy, safe and prosperous year in 2017.
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