2011 A Good Year

Once again, the key sales markets for German construction equipment and building material machinery were France, Russia, the USA and the world’s largest market China. Compared to the previous year, construction machinery exports rose by about 24% in total. The Russian market, in particular, boomed. Companies were able to sell twice as much as in the previous year. Exports of building material machinery in the same period made less of an impact but still attained a good 8% over the previous year. Poland saw remarkable development (+41%) as did Turkey (+110%), though at a lower absolute level. Overall, in 2011 the sector exported construction equipment and building material machinery worth € 9.3 bill. This is 17% more than in 2010.

Given that BRIC countries are still intact as the drivers of growth, the sector anticipates that demand for construction equipment and building material machinery will develop positively in the medium term. This trend is also noticeable in terms of order levels. In 2012, however, the German domestic market is likely to see less growth than the previous year. For this year the ­German Engineering Federation (VDMA) therefore anticipates 5% turnover growth in each of the two sub-sectors.
A major challenge facing the sector is today’s ever shorter economic cycles with greater volatility and short delivery times.

At the same time, the industry is feeling the extraordinarily heavy cost burdens as a result of ever more regulations.