In the Corona-crisis upset customers hold back on orders of machinery "Made in Germany". The low point seems to be but not yet achieved.

Frankfurt/Main (dpa) - Germany's machine-builders have to get the Corona crisis in April to be felt with full force. The orders fell compared to the same month last year adjusted for price increases (in real terms) by 31 percent, as the industry Association VDMA said in Frankfurt.

it was the sharpest fall since the financial crisis with a Minus of more than 50 percent in April 2009, said VDMA chief economist Ralph Wiechers. Domestic orders fell in April this year by 25 percent. Foreign orders plunged by 34 per cent. A quick end to the downward trend is not yet in sight.

"The April mark did not pay very probably the low point," said Wiechers. "We are in the midst of a difficult second quarter." Loaded at the beginning of the pandemic, especially broken supply chains, shops, prepares, in the meantime, especially the fall in demand in the industry, with around 1.3 million employees problems. Upset customers hold back on orders.

According to a survey by the Association at the end of may, 30 percent of the surveyed machine builders expect a worsening of their job situation in the next three months, 50 percent expect unchanged bad shops. Only 20 percent expect a slight improvement, mainly because the business in China in recent weeks have revived, said Wiechers.

The Corona-crisis hits, in the meantime, almost all machine builders. About 98 percent of businesses suffer from the economic consequences of the pandemic, as the recent VDMA survey. For this year, about 6 out of 10 companies expect reported sales to decline by 10 to 30 percent. A topic is removal increasingly. This is particularly relevant to companies that have already been recorded in the past year a decline in sales, said Wiechers recently.

International trade conflicts and the slowdown of the world economy had impacted parts of the export-oriented industry in the past year.

In the less volatile Three-prone-month period from February to April 2020, the order intake fell by 14 percent year-on-year. From the domestic market, 10 percent were less orders, orders from abroad remained 16 percent below the year-earlier period.

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