Foreign trade
Many medium -sized companies withdraw from foreign business
Wars, crises, competition from China: Business abroad have become more difficult for many German medium -sized companies. The customs dispute with the USA provides new uncertainty.
Many medium -sized companies from Germany give up their foreign business. If around 880,000 of the approximately 3.8 million medium -sized companies were still active abroad in 2022, a year later it was only 763,000, an analysis of the state funding bank KfW. The proportion of medium-sized companies across borders dropped from around 23 to 20 percent and lies below the long-term average before the Corona crisis.
“The framework conditions for foreign trade have deteriorated significantly,” says KfW bosswirt Dirk Schumacher. “Persistent geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East, growing export competition by China in important key industries and the Protectionist trade policy in the United States put a strain on the export of the companies.” In addition, many medium -sized companies saw the location conditions in Germany as increasingly difficult for their competitiveness.
A special survey by the KfW in January 2025 showed that the weak development of foreign business continued. According to this, 21 percent of all medium -sized companies active abroad reported in 2024 about growing international sales and 25 percent about falling sales. The view of the coming years is mixed.
Fear of Donald Trump’s tariffs
The concerns of business relationships to the USA are particularly great – currently a good 16 percent of German medium -sized companies. Of them, 34 percent fears more negative, another 9 percent even very negative consequences of new US politics on their own company, according to the survey, which took place before the customs package of US President Donald Trump was announced.
The most important sales markets are in Europe. According to KfW, German companies most frequently set their products in Austria and Switzerland in 2023, followed by the Benelux countries and France. Those companies that have remained abroad were able to expand the share of foreign business in total sales to 29 percent, the KfW study continues. With the withdrawal of many companies, the foreign sales of German middle class shrank slightly to 698 billion euros.
dpa
Source: Stern
