Economy
Electrical industry expects growth
An employee of Alfred Kärcher SE & Co. KG assembles a scrubbing machine. Photo: Marijan Murat/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The important industrial sector has recovered rapidly from the Corona crisis and is aiming for strong growth. With the lack of semiconductors, there is hope for improvement.
Despite the delivery bottlenecks for semiconductors, the German electronics industry is expecting strong growth this year. The ZVEI industry association announced that production should increase by four percent in real terms.
If the high order backlog can be processed quickly, growth could be even higher. The association sees at least one ray of hope in the supply bottlenecks for preliminary products, especially for semiconductors: an improvement is not expected until the middle of the year at the earliest, said ZVEI President Gunther Kegel. The topic will keep the industry busy throughout the year, but with decreasing intensity.
In competition with the USA and China, there should be no one-sided dependencies, “neither in cutting-edge technologies such as semiconductors nor in cutting-edge research,” said Kegel. The EU must get its support program for microelectronics up and running quickly.
The electrical industry recovered rapidly from the Corona crisis last year and more than made up for the declines from the crisis year 2020. From January to November, production in the industry grew by a good nine percent with 877,000 employees. It benefited from exports to Europe, China and the USA.
Almost all sub-areas have recorded growth, the strongest being batteries, which are in demand for electric cars and e-bikes, said Kegel. But things also went uphill in medical technology.
200 billion euro mark reached
In the first eleven months of last year, sales increased by almost ten percent compared to the same period last year. Projected for the whole of 2021, sales have almost reached the 200 billion euro mark for the first time, the ZVEI announced. Without delivery bottlenecks, sales could have been significantly higher.
When it comes to climate protection and electrification, the association calls for more speed. The grid expansion had been neglected for years, said Wolfgang Weber, chairman of the ZVEI management board. «Without a high-performance, digitized power grid, the energy transition cannot succeed.» With digitization and electrification, the demand for electricity in Germany will increase sharply: from the last 500 terawatt hours to over 700 terawatt hours in 2030.
In addition, Germany must modernize the building sector with its high CO2 emissions more quickly, said Weber. “Most of the buildings are not suitable for the energy transition, the refurbishment rate is too low, and the electrical installations are often ready for a museum.”
In order to make renewable electricity attractive as an energy source, the price of electricity must also fall, Weber demanded. The abolition of the EEG surcharge planned by the federal government is not enough. The electricity tax must also be reduced and completely eliminated for renewable electricity. For motorists, for example, electricity must be cheaper than petrol in order for the traffic turnaround to progress.