Orders received by the German machine tool industry in the third quarter of 2018 were 2% down on Q3 2017; orders from Germany fell by 1%, whereas those from abroad were down by 2%.
However, orders increased by 7% in the first nine months of the year compared with the first nine months of 2017, with domestic orders growing by 20% and foreign orders by 1%.
Wilfried Schäfer, executive director of the VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association) (
www.vdw.de/en), said: “Orders and production are set to make 2018 a record-breaking year.
“Nevertheless, we are currently seeing a slight downturn in orders for the first time in more than a year. The boom is gradually coming to an end, and demand is normalising.
“On the one hand, the global economy is slowing, with growth having stalled in the markets outside the euro zone. On the other hand, the strong domestic demand in the second half of 2017, as evidenced at the
EMO show in Hannover, is now leading to a fall in total order levels.
Finally, global developments — including the spread of trade conflicts, increasing protectionism, rising oil prices, high inflation in various emerging markets and unchecked debt — are unsettling customers, especially small and medium-size enterprises.”
Dr Schäfer added that employment and capacity utilisation are continuing to soar, with the machine tool industry accounting for a record level of almost 73,700 employees in August of this year.
“At 95%, there was almost full capacity utilisation in October 2018. The last time such high levels were posted was in July 2012.”
The German machine tool industry ranks among the five largest specialist groupings in the mechanical engineering sector. In 2017, it produced machines and services worth around 16.1 billion euros.