Tel. +86 10 8773 0210
Tel. +86 10 8773 0211
Tel. +86 10 8773 0212
Tel. +86 21 6249 0188
11.04.2011 – Last year China was again the top sales market for plastics and rubber machinery ‘Made in Germany’. German exports rose by an impressive 64.4 per cent with deliveries of machinery totalling 587.2 million euro. “This growth more than made up for the slump the year before,” said Ulrich Reifenhäuser, Chairman of the VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association. “In terms of value, exports fell only slightly short of the 2004 record.”
With a rate of 60.4 per cent, a sharp rise in sales to East Asia as a whole was recorded; deliveries to the Republic of Korea and Taiwan also showed above average increases of 141.4 per cent and 33.4 per cent respectively. Asia’s share of all German exports rose to 37.8 per cent.
German exports of plastics and rubber machinery were up by 25.6 per cent in 2010. According to figures submitted to the Federal Statistical Office the export value totalled 3,312 million euro. A year earlier, foreign deliveries had suffered a sharp decline of 33.9 per cent. “Despite the welcome growth, we are still some way short of the record figure of 3,989 million euro achieved in 2008,” explained Thorsten Kühmann, Managing Director of the VDMA Association.
Almost all sales regions contributed to the growth. Exports to the EU 27 countries were up by 16.3 per cent, with Italy and France almost level pegging and Poland in third place. Exports to the Rest of Europe grew by 16.6 per cent. In spite of sales being down again, Russia remains this region’s most important customer; Turkey’s purchases have more than doubled, however. In Africa, Egypt has taken the place of South Africa as the major sales market. In North America (30.3 per cent), orders from the US were up by just under a third, while the growth rate for Central America (25.1 per cent) reflects rising demand from Mexico. “Deliveries to Brazil, which more than doubled in 2010, are making a significant contribution to South America’s overall increase of 60.7 per cent,” said Ulrich Reifenhäuser who was pleased with that performance. Most of the growth from Central and South Asia (15.1 per cent) is accounted for by India (7.5 per cent), which ranks third in the world top ten. Among customers in South East Asia (3.6 per cent), Indonesia is now the clear leader.
The situation in the Near and Middle East is more subdued, the figures recorded being down by 12.9 per cent compared with the previous year; the major markets of Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates all contributed to the decline.
Deliveries by foreign manufacturers of plastics and rubber machinery to customers in Germany also recovered in 2010. Although imports rose by 17.5 per cent to 633 million euro, they too fell well short of the pre-crisis figure of 851 million euro. As a result, the German foreign trade surplus in plastics and rubber machinery widened again.