Staying competitive in today’s business climate requires unrelenting vigilance. As part of our strategy, we strive to continuously improve our cost structure and enhance our competitive position, by investing in our asset base and by implementing new methods and processes throughout our business. Innovation of both products and processes, therefore, is vital to our long-term business prospects.
In 2012, our product and process innovations continued as in years past. Separation Technologies, among the Group’s leaders in innovation, has continued to build on its strengths and this year also sold its patented-equipment to a plant external to the Group, in South Korea. This year we also launched a new entity called GAEA – Green Alternative Energy Assets – with the aim of becoming the alternative fuels solution provider for the Southeastern Europe and Eastern Mediterranean Business Units of the Group. Both of these initiatives seek to use innovation to implement our long-term business strategy by further aligning corporate business interests with sound environmental principles that are in harmony with global developments. These innovations embody our strategy to “Go Long” (since long-term environmental prospects are balanced with short-term business imperatives) and to “Go Local” (since both ST and GAEA have evolved in harmony with local market conditions and maturity).
