Germany's VDMA says the European construction equipment and building materials plant industry is facing numerous crises, including intensified supply chain problems, which has left it on course for no turnover growth in 2022 despite healthy order books.
In a press statement, the 3,500-member construction equipment and plant engineering trade association, the biggest of its kind in Europe, says: "As recently as February, incoming orders in the [European] construction machinery industry had manufacturers with production facilities in Germany looking ahead to 2022 with the hope that single-digit sales growth of 7% could be achieved if the situation on the supplier side improved. This expectation has lapsed; the industry sees itself unable to make a serious forecast in a current crisis environment of war, inflation, energy shortages, the onset of the interest rate turnaround, the weakness of the euro, the continuing negative effects of the pandemic, especially in China, and huge disruptions in international logistics."
The VDMA describes the situation as "paradoxical" - as the high order backlog in the construction equipment and building materials plant industry "belies the situation".
The press statement continued: "Despite this good situation, some companies are on short-time work because of a lack of material and preliminary products. Whether they will be able to work off the orders in the coming months is completely unclear. Additional demand stimuli are hardly in sight so far. Therefore, flexible framework conditions are imperative to be able to manoeuvre through these uncertain waters.
"In the medium term, the outlook remains positive because most customer industries will continue to grow in the future. However, there will be a slowing effect due to the increased public debt in many countries as a result of the pandemic and the Ukraine war.
"The major tasks of reducing CO₂ and advancing digitalisation are boosting the innovative strength of companies and thus opening up expanded or new fields of business. The leading trade fairs for the construction machinery and building materials plant industry, glasstec in September and bauma in October, will point the way ahead."
