German Equipment Industries News

German marine equipment suppliers are staying successful. Surveys of their industry association, the VDMA (German Engineering Federation), resulted in new record figures: in 2007, the sales achieved €11.9 billion with now 76,000 employees, making over 13.8% up on the previous year. The export rate was 73%. The sector could thus maintain and expand its world leading role for high tech systems for shipbuilding. 58% of the German suppliers expect the order inflow in home trading still to increase in 2008, pushed by the still extraordinarily high capacity utilization of the German shipyards. But the effects of the global shipbuilding boom can mainly be seen in the foreign markets.