The growth rate of the German machine tool industry has stabilized

After several months of rapid growth, the German machine tool industry has gradually stabilized again. According to the statistics of the German Machine Tool Manufacturers Association (VDW), in the third quarter of 2011, the German machine tool industry orders increased by 29% year-on-year. Among them, German domestic orders increased by 33%, and overseas export orders increased by 27%. In the first nine months of 2011, German machine tool order demand increased by 74% year-on-year. Among them, domestic orders in Germany increased by 71% year-on-year, and overseas orders also increased by 76% year-on-year. Dr. Wilfried Schafer, Executive Director of VDW, pointed out: 'Since this year, German machine tool orders have always maintained growth and performed exceptionally well. Nevertheless, from the quarterly data comparison, the growth rate of industry orders has shown a downward trend. It has maintained two consecutive months of growth. It is foreseeable that this industry tends to become more normalized after the growth rate of three digits or even three digits.' The good performance of orders has once again effectively improved the capacity utilization rate of the machine tool industry. In October of this year, the capacity utilization rate of the German machine tool industry has reached 95.5%, which means that the company is operating at almost full capacity. Compared with the same period in 2010, the industry capacity utilization rate at that time was only 75.4%, which vividly illustrates the challenges faced by the industry. As of September, the total number of employees in the German machine tool industry was 66,865, a year-on-year increase of 4.4%. In the first nine months of this year, the total output of German machine tools increased by 36% year-on-year. Schafer pointed out: 'From the perspective of the whole year, it is expected that the industry situation will be better than previously expected. The latest forecast is that German machine tool production will increase by 1/3 year-on-year in 2011.' Nonetheless, given the ongoing uncertainty in financial markets, especially in Europe The debt crisis is spreading, and companies are expecting a bleak outlook in the months ahead. These external factors have been superimposed on normal cycle demand trends, Schafer noted in the report. However, among the various factors that affect the sales of different companies, product structure and customer base are still the most closely influencing factors. For suppliers of custom machines, especially those with long lead times, backlogs of nearly 10 months, combined with continued investment needs from the automotive industry and its system suppliers, coupled with energy equipment and aircraft Strong demand from manufacturers, the combination of these factors will lead to a stable result for business development.