The steel pipe products market is also oligopolistic. The average mark-up for 1988 is 1.21 and for 1994 in 1.26. Lead pipe products confront only domestic competition due to the absence of external trade. We cannot comment on the mark-up of those firms as well as of the firms producing aluminum pipe products because there is no firm producing only pipe products. There are some innovative firms in the plastic pipe products sector.
Innovations are both of the product and the process type.
Although mergers and acquisitions is not an important phenomenon for the pipe products sector as a whole, in the plastic pipe products sector they received considerable importance. The prospects of the market for pipe products mainly depends on the following factors. The last years all three factors were not in favor for the pipe products market. Both construction and public work activity exhibited a considerable slow down and the exchange policy worked towards an exports decrease. Moreover, the pipe products market will depend on the prospects of public work activity and on the prospects on the construction sector.