Order lull
Weak economic activity is causing problems for mechanical engineering
The order books of many machine and system manufacturers are significantly emptier than last year. The industry association VDMA has two main explanations for the lull.
Due to a lull in orders, Germany’s mechanical engineering companies are looking to the next few months with little confidence. According to the industry association VDMA, orders were below the previous year’s level both in September (minus four percent) and in the nine-month period from January to September inclusive (minus eight percent).
“There is a lack of impulses from many sales markets,” explained Olaf Wortmann, an economic expert at the Association of German Mechanical and Plant Engineering (VDMA). “But there is also a lack of a clear, business-friendly course from the federal government with measures that would stimulate new investments.”
Domestic orders are decreasing
In August, the industry recorded even more orders overall than the year before, thanks to an increase in orders from abroad. However, at the time, Wortmann classified this as an “upward outlier”. In September 2024, foreign orders remained stable thanks to large-scale plant transactions, while domestic orders fell by 16 percent compared to the same month last year.
It was only in September that the VDMA significantly lowered its expectations for the year as a whole: The association now assumes that price-adjusted production will be around eight percent below the previous year’s level – due, among other things, to weaknesses in important markets such as the USA and China . For 2025, the VDMA is expecting a production decline of two percent.
dpa
Source: Stern
