The domestic market of suppliers of aluminium systems used in the manufacturing of insulated joinery and in the making of curtain walls had a quite different trend from other segments of the windows branch during last year. The efforts made by major companies in order to stabilize their deliveries by value and / or quantity stand out in this respect. However, given the continuous reduction - near dissolution - of the number of significant projects during which metal profiles are used and also because of some negative premises, both domestic and international (bound also to the international price of primary aluminium), the drastically decrease of profitability was inevitable and is now a feature of the entire sector. From the outset it should be noted that the negative results reported by the major market operators have made impossible for an exhaustive analysis to be accurately contoured because the information available in this area are generally quite imprecise and sometimes contradictory. Nonetheless, in order to assess the level of aluminium system suppliers, which have decided to continue their business in our country also in the fifth consecutive year in which the national economy faces problems of great magnitude, a brief reiteration of the data on imports of aluminium profiles made in the first nine months of last year is necessary. Thus, according to the latest information provided by the National Statistics Institute (INS), between January and September 2012 the imports of aluminium profiles stood at a level of value and quantity which reflects increases of 15.35% in the first case and of 19.89% in the second, in comparison with the same period in 2011, both rates being well above the market average in a way relatively similar to the previous year. Since the difference in value and quantity (on an annual calculation basis) is relatively significant, a continuation of the upward trend in the third quarter of 2012 (8.61%) can be observed, a fact which occurred after the increase of the first semester of the same year (19.82%), which registered the recovery of the losses caused by the initial and, afterwards, continuous, decline of aluminium series deliveries. For further information and a detailed analysis of the current Fereastra issue, click here!