Turnover Achieved by German Plastics Processors Made a Rebound in 2010

Turnover achieved by German plastics processors made a rebound in 2010, with 14% growth to 1.3bn, bringing turnover close to the record 2008 level of2.3bn. At the GKV association's traditional annual Ash Wednesday briefing on 9 March, GKV president Dr Bernd-Otto Kruse said: "The economy had clearly already started to grow again in Asia in the second half of 2009, but the rapid growth in 2010 could not have been foreseen. As much as the free-fall was unprecedented, so was the comeback". Turnover had dropped 14% in 2009 after low growth of only 2% in 2008. Kruse put the results in the context of the 3.6% growth in German GDP in 2010, the fastest economic growth since the reunification of the country more than 20 years ago. He pointed out that the plastics processing industry has returned to outpacing growth in the overall economy. In 2010, production volume rose 7% to 12.2m tonnes, while exports increased by 15.5% to 8.3bn, reversing the 16% drop in 2009. Sales to the domestic market grew slightly less strongly, up 13% to 3bn, compared with a 12.5% decline in 2009. Producers of technical parts, primarily for the automotive, electrical and electronic industries, experienced the fastest growth in 2010 – up 22.7% to 1.9bn. Volumes grew less strongly, climbing 10% to 2.2m tonnes. The "other applications" sector, supplying the consumer, furniture, household, medial and sport & leisure markets, had the second highest turnover growth of 14.6% to6.4bn. This sector had declined 11.1% in 2009. Packaging turnover increased by 14% to 2.2bn, reversing a 14.4% turnover decline in 2009. Volume grew by 10% to the same 4.1m tonnes level as in 2008, with packaging film accounting for around 1.7m tonnes. The building industry had moderate 5% growth in turnover to 0.8bn, but had suffered less than the other sectors in 2009 when it declined 7.3%. Source: European Plastics News