Production in mechanical engineering
Growth well below the VDMA's expectations
According to preliminary calculations by the Federal Statistical Office, production in the mechanical engineering sector in Germany rose by 2% in 2018. This fell well short of the VDMA's forecast of 5% growth.
In the first ten months of last year, production growth in the mechanical engineering sector was still on track at 3.7%. "However, the final two months proved to be unexpectedly weak, with production even falling by 8% year-on-year in December," explained VDMA economic expert Olaf Wortmann, adding: "This fits the picture of the entire industry, which is suffering from geopolitical uncertainties."
Incoming orders in the mechanical engineering sector had also originally signaled significantly more dynamic production growth. However, capacity bottlenecks meant that production was weaker than expected. In October, 28% of mechanical engineering companies suffered from material shortages, 27% from labor shortages and 10% from bottlenecks in their own machinery. An order backlog of 8.5 production months (as of November 2018) indicates that many orders from 2018 will only be produced this year. The VDMA is therefore sticking to its forecast of 2% growth for 2019, although the economic outlook has worsened since the forecast was published in September 2018.
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