Last year, German packaging manufacturers again experienced strong sales growth (8.3%) to hit a new record of EUR 32.1 bn, according to figures recently announced by the Joint Committee of German Packaging Manufacturers (GADV), which represents the interests of all the country's packaging sectors. On the other hand, says GADV, production volume rose by only 4% last year to reach a total of 19.9m t. The industry benefitted from the good domestic economy and growing demand for innovative packaging solutions. The positive development was, however, clouded by mounting raw material and energy costs, which manufacturers were unable to pass on in full to their customers.

As in previous years, packaging made of paper and board constituted the largest packaging fraction in volume terms, with a share of 48% or 9.5m t. In terms of turnover, however, plastic packaging led the field again in 2011 with a value of around EUR 13.2 bn. This represented a share of just over 41% of the total packaging market.

All packaging materials posted significant growth. With a rise of 9%, the production of glass packaging rose the fastest of all compared with 2010, followed by plastics packaging (up 5%), metal (up 2.6%), and paper and board (up 2.3%). In terms of value, sales of paper/board packaging grew fastest, at over 10%. In value terms, sales of plastics packaging increased by 9%, glass packaging by 8% and metal packaging (aluminium and steel) by 2%.

For the current year, all packaging producers are relatively optimistic, although they are still concerned about the development of raw material prices. "The specific effects of the energy transformation and the accompanying cost increases on the entire packaging industry are unpredictable at the moment," said Ulf Kelterborn, managing director of Germany’s packaging producers' association Industrieverband Kunststoffverpackungen (IK; Bad Homburg; www.kunststoffverpackungen.de), commenting on the current state of the German packaging market. In 2012, the Secretariat of the GADV is serving as head of the IK (on a rotary basis).

Detailed figures on the German plastics packaging segment can be found on Plasteurope.com of 11.05.2012.