Positive 2015 for German construction

German engineering federation the VDMA has released figures saying that sales by the country’s construction equipment manufacturers reached €9 billion (US$9.9 billion) in 2015.

This was an increase of 7% on the previous year and the construction equipment trade association within the VDMA believes that further – though slight – growth is possible this year, despite the global market experiencing a double-digit downturn in the previous 12 months.

However, it describes 2016 as “highly risk prone”, with political and violent conflicts, excessively low oil and raw material prices, and unsolved economic crises all combining to cause uncertainty.

“German companies were not affected as much by severe downturns such as those in China, Latin America and Russia,” said Johann Sailer, chairman of the Construction Equipment and Building Material Machinery Association within the VDMA.

“Instead, we participated in the above average positive development of the European, Middle East and North American markets.

“Risks do not affect every market in the same way. Depending on where a company has its main business activities, it will be affected to a greater or lesser extent.”

The VDMA said the industry as a whole is expecting sales growth of around 3% in 2016, which would be a third consecutive increase.