Manfred Denk had his first appearance as a new chairman in the federal division and craft on Tuesday. The entrepreneur from Lower Austria – he operates a heating and sanitary installation company with 30 employees – followed in this function for Renate Scheikelbauer -Schuster, which had been at the top since 2014.
Denk represents around 300,000 companies with more than 800,000 employees. For this, he had behaved positive messages ready for a press conference, but without falling into euphoria. Think: “Many don’t quite trust peace yet.”
The mood barometer in the industry shows behavior upwards, said Denk. In the first quarter of 2025 there was still a nominal (value -based) minus of two percent. Under billing the prices (plus 2.6 percent), this results in a real (quantity -like) minus of 4.6 percent. The decline was significantly weakened compared to the previous year (then minus 8.1 percent).
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Image: WKO/Nadine Studeny
Source: Nachrichten
