The mechanical eningeering industry had an extraordinarily strong recovery last year. While the first Corona year 2020 was  characterised by significant declines in orders, the order books were filled again strongly in 2021. Overall, German mechanical engineering companies recorded a real order growth of 32 percent compared to the previous year, with domestic orders increasing by 18 percent and foreign orders by 39 percent. Adjusted for prices, incoming orders even exceeded the high level of the economically good year 2018 by 7 per cent. “As a result, companies have started the current year with an above-average order backlog of 10,9 months. This provides security, even if the existing supply bottlenecks will continue for quite some time and make it difficult to process the orders,” summarised VDMA economic expert Olaf Wortmann.

In December 2021, the companies showed another strong finish and recorded an impresssive order increase of 21 percent. “This is particularly pleasing as the order level in December 2020 was already quite high,” Wortmann explained. Domestic orders rose by 15 per cent in the month under review, while orders from abroad increased by 24 per cent. Orders from the euro countries were up by 15 per cent, while orders from the non-euro countries were up by as much as 28 per cent.

For the fourth quarter of 2021 as a whole, orders increased by 21 percent, compared to the previous year. Domestic orders increased by 14 per cent, while orders from abroad rose by 24 per cent. The euro countries increased their orders by 28 per cent in this period, the non-euro countries by 23 per cent.