Export industry
Ifo: Industry rates poor competitiveness
Industrial production in Germany is shrinking and companies are being slowed down by energy prices and bureaucracy. A comparison with other European countries is sobering.
Industry in Germany is assessing the development of its own competitiveness increasingly poorly. According to estimates from around 2,000 industrial companies surveyed by the Ifo Institute, the competitive position has deteriorated more in the past two years than ever since the survey began in 1994, says Ifo expert Stefan Sauer.
While the assessments of Italian and French industrial companies are above the EU average, “Germany can be found at the bottom of the list, together with Belgium, Austria and Finland,” write the Munich economic researchers. The very negative assessment extends across all industrial sectors, especially with regard to exports. What is striking is the extremely negative development in the energy-intensive industrial sectors.
Crisis factors: High costs and bureaucratic hurdles
“The analysis makes it clear that the advantages of German industry on international markets are increasingly dwindling,” says Sauer. In addition to the high energy prices in Germany, the main reasons given by the companies were the high level of bureaucracy, more expensive primary products and taxes. Industrial production in Germany has fallen by 12 percent since 2018. Incoming orders remain weak, capacity utilization continues to fall, and equipment investments have been declining for four quarters.
Ifo study “Competitiveness of German industry in free fall?”
dpa
Source: Stern
