Saxon mechanical engineering continued its growth trend last year. This was announced by the German Engineering Federation East (VDMA) in Leipzig on Friday. The industry recorded a nominal 10 percent increase in turnover in 2023 compared to the previous year. The VDMA cited data from the State Statistical Office for companies with at least 50 employees.
According to this, the 196 Saxon mechanical engineering companies of this size sold machines, systems, components and services worth 8.5 billion euros. In the previous year, they achieved 7.7 billion euros. In 2021, the figure was 7.4 billion euros. The setback during the coronavirus pandemic has therefore finally been overcome.
"After the deep cut in 2020, the industry initially started to recover in small steps," said Oliver Köhn, Managing Director of VDMA East. Now it has made a big leap and broken the previous sales high from 2019. Köhn attributes the enormous increase to two factors in particular: firstly, the long-lasting consequences of the pandemic, such as travel restrictions and material shortages, had led to an immense backlog of orders. Secondly, inflation made mechanical engineering products more expensive.
According to statistics, total turnover increased for the third time in a row in 2023. Foreign business was the main contributor to this. This increased by 16 percent from 3.8 billion euros to around 4.4 billion euros. As in previous years, China was the strongest trading partner. Machines were also in demand in the USA, France, the UK and the Czech Republic. Domestic sales increased by 5 percent - from 3.9 billion euros to 4.1 billion euros. The export ratio was 51.5 percent.
This year, Köhn expects a similar result to last year. However, he expects the economic conditions to remain challenging this year.
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