Abstract:

This paper reviews the present state of market research and forecasting for the chemical industry; with particular reference to trends in its use and to current efforts to develop scientific techniques for use in the most difficult part of the art : long term forecasting. The techniques discussed are end-use analysis (including the use of sampling), trend projection and econometric forecasting; the discussion of trend projection is illustrated with case histories based on time series, for industrial materials, of 45 to 164 years duration.