While the long-term outlook is positive thanks to a number of powerful trends in today's society, including urbanization in developing countries, growing requirements for interconnection and the development of electrical infrastructure, and the global expansion of renewable energies, the short‑term outlook is more problematic.We expect growth to remain lackluster in Europe (apart from for certain niche products), and the recovery in the U.S. markets is likely to stay muted. Two thirds of the forecast growth in our markets for the next two to three years will come from emerging countries.The Group’s exposure to Europe and the USA of almost 60% and the persistent slowdown in South America and the Asia-Pacific region (Australia), have weighed on the Group’s performance over the last 18 months, and this trend is set to continue during the rest of 2014. In view of this situation, Nexans now forecasts sales to decrease by around 4% on an organic basis in the third quarter of 2014, and growth to be flat for the year as a whole.