The worldwide corona crisis also clouds the business of German industrial valve manufacturers in the first half of the year. Nevertheless, the industry has so far been able to hold its own in a difficult environment. While the export business has been very subdued in the wake of the effects of the pandemic, domestic business has advanced to become the industry’s driving force. The long-term project business in particular has so far had a positive effect on sales. Against the backdrop of a very weak first half of 2019, domestic sales in the first half of 2020 even increased by 20%. The foreign business proved much more difficult in 2020 but was still 3% higher than in the previous year due to a successful start to the year.
Shut-off, control, and safety valves with different signs: Business in all three product groups was encouraging in the first six months of the year. Nevertheless, there were varying degrees of development. The strongest growth was recorded in control valves, which increased by 15%, followed by safety and monitoring valves, which increased by 10%, and shut-off valves, which increased by 6%. However, the outlook differs more widely.
In the first half of the year, German industrial valve manufacturers exported goods worth EUR 2.0bn abroad. This corresponds to a decline of 8.6% compared to the same period last year.
In the case of China, the most important trading partner, the business has since picked up again after a sharp dip at the beginning of the year and is now slightly up (plus 1.3%). In total, valves worth EUR 264.1M were delivered to the People’s Republic. Also to Switzerland (7th place for exports), with EUR 75.0M, 8.2% more goods were exported than in the same period last year.
However, deliveries to the second most important customer country, the USA, fell by 16.9% to EUR 179.6M. There were also significantly fewer valves shipped to France than in the previous year (minus 10.7%). The country nevertheless maintained its third place among the most important sales markets with a sales volume of EUR 110.6M.
