Orders for the German machine tool industry rose 29% in the third quarter

According to the latest data released by the German Machine Tool Manufacturers Association (VDW) on November 22, in the third quarter of this year, German machine tool orders increased by 29% year-on-year, of which orders from domestic companies increased by 33% and orders from overseas markets increased by 27%.

In the first nine months of 2011, total demand for German machine tools rose by 74%. In particular, domestic customer demand increased by 71% year-on-year, while overseas customers increased demand by 76%.

VDW Executive Chairman, Dr. Wilfried Schfer said that the status of German machine tool orders continued to improve this year. However, compared with the previous quarters, the growth rate in the third quarter has declined. After the growth rate of 2-3 digits in the previous months, it can be expected that the overall development of the German machine tool industry will show a growth trend this year. Since the second quarter of this year, the good base effect in 2010 has made remarkable achievements in the order volume of the German machine tool industry.

The good order situation promoted the increase of the utilization rate of the German machine tool sector. In October, the utilization rate of the machine tool division reached 95.5%, indicating that machine tool builders have used almost all of their production lines. Compared to the average utilization rate of 75.4% last year, the German machine tool sector is facing great challenges. In September this year, the number of employees in the machine tool sector reached 66,865, an increase of 4.4% over the number of employees in the previous year.

According to current statistics, the output of the German machine tool industry in the first three quarters increased by 36% year-on-year. Schfer explained that from the overall situation this year, the performance of the German machine tool industry has been better than expected so far. VDW expects overall machine tool production in 2011 to increase by one-third year-on-year.

However, not only the impact of the European debt crisis, but also the continued uncertainty of the entire financial market, these external factors, coupled with the cyclical demand impact of the machine tool industry, have caused companies to remain in the doldrums for the development of the next few months. But Schfer said that for many companies, the improvement in order status is closely related to their own product lines and customer needs. Especially those customized machine tool vendors, as well as long-term use of project operation mechanism of enterprises, the high order backlog of close to 10 months, the automotive industry, the energy industry and aircraft manufacturers demand is still very strong, these factors combined will of the machine tool industry in order to produce a stable influence.