While the industrial valves sector was still able to hold its own in the first half of 2020 despite the corona crisis, declining demand is currently making itself felt more strongly at home and abroad. Foreign business, in particular, is declining. Foreign sales fell by 5% from January to September 2020. By contrast, sales in Germany rose by 10% at the same time. Overall, the manufacturers thus achieved a sales increase of 1%.
Thanks to stable domestic demand, the industry achieved an increase in sales in all segments from January to September. However, the situation was different for foreign sales, which declined across the board. Due to a sharp drop in foreign business, sales of shut-off valves shrank by 2% overall. In contrast, sales of control, safety, and monitoring valves still increased by 4%. A glance at the order books shows that the negative trend of recent months will continue in the near future.
In the period from January to September 2020, German industrial valve manufacturers exported goods worth around EUR 3bn abroad. This represents a decline of 10.5% compared to the same period last year.
Business with the country’s most important trading partner, China, picked up again somewhat after a sharp dip at the beginning of the year and is currently only just (minus 1.4%) below the very good level of the previous year. In total, fittings worth EUR 401.4M were delivered to the People’s Republic. Deliveries to the second most important customer country, the USA, slumped by 18.1% to EUR 269.0M. Significantly fewer fittings were also shipped to France than in the previous year (minus 12.5%). The country nevertheless maintained its third place among the most important sales markets with a purchase volume of EUR 162.2M.
Among the key customer countries, only Switzerland and Russia stood out positively. Exports to the southern neighboring country rose by 5.3% to EUR 113.1M, and 4.3% more goods (EUR 107M) were delivered to Russia.