German mechanical engineering 2016
Exports rise to 156 billion euros
Last year, machines worth a total of 155.9 billion euros were exported from Germany - a small increase of 0.2% on the previous year. Europe remains the most important sales region.
At 46.5%, the EU accounted for almost half of the machines delivered in 2016. Shortly after the financial crisis in 2012, this share had already fallen below 40%.
© Shutterstock.comAccording to VDMA Chief Economist Dr. Ralph Wiechers, exports to EU countries rose by 4.1% in 2016, while machinery exports to eurozone countries even grew by 5.3%. The successes on the domestic market were important because sales on the major overseas markets were less pleasing for machine manufacturers. Machines and systems worth 16.3 billion euros were sold to the USA, the largest single market for suppliers of capital goods. This was 2.9% less than in the previous year, when a strong increase of 11.2% had been recorded. However, the USA remained the most important single sales market for mechanical engineering companies from Germany, ahead of China. Machinery worth EUR 14.6 billion was delivered to China, a decline of 9.3% after the previous year had already closed with a drop of 5.9%.
Dr. Ralph Wiechers is cautiously optimistic for 2017: "In the current year, some negative factors such as the development of commodity prices will lessen in their impact."
© VDMACountries that are particularly dependent on commodity prices suffered particularly severe setbacks in 2016. Exports to Brazil, for example, fell by a quarter (25.6%), while exports to Saudi Arabia dropped by almost a third (32.1%). In the previous year (2015), such declines were also reported by the Russian market. In 2016, exports to Russia fell by a further 6.6%. The country is now - behind the Czech Republic - only number 11 in the ranking of the most important export destinations for German mechanical engineering with a share of 2.8 %. Only individual foreign markets fared as well as Europe. Deliveries to South East Asia increased by 3.9%. Japan - otherwise more of a competitor - purchased 11% more German mechanical engineering products. Business with Iran, which had been weak for a long time, also picked up strongly with an increase of 37%. Exports to Egypt even shot up by 80% - although this was probably driven by very large individual projects.
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