German plastics and rubber machinery manufacturers have recovered from the economic crisis more quickly and decisively than anticipated a year ago, according to the trade committee within the German Engineering Federation VDMA (KuG, Frankfurt; www.kug.vdma.org). Posting 17% sales growth in 2010, the industry did even better than the upwardly revised forecast of 15% announced at “K 2010”, said committee president Ulrich Reifenhäuser, managing partner of extrusion specialist Reifenhäuser (Troisdorf / Germany; www.reifenhauser.com) – see Plasteurope.com of 26.10.2010.

Machinery sales in the German home market increased by 10%, while foreign sales rose by 19%. Within the euro zone, the upturn was 9%. The industry’s main foreign customer was once again China, with the US “a distant second” and India ranking third. Data supplied by KuG member companies shows that new order intake improved sharply month-by-month in 2010. Reifenhäuser said K 2010 brought a “powerful boost” to business, with capacity utilisation increasing “markedly.” The high order volume – for the year as a whole up 75% against 2009 – will keep many firms working at full capacity well into 2011.

Final figures for 2010 are expected to show output of core plastics and rubber machinery made in Germany settling out at around EUR 4.5 bn, which was an improvement against 2009 but “well below the record figure of 5.6 billion euro achieved in 2008,” Reifenhäuser said. German manufacturers export more than two-thirds of overall production.