Status: December 20, 2021 10:19 a.m.
Despite the recent strong growth figures, the mood among German export companies is deteriorating, as an ifo survey shows. This is particularly noticeable in the automotive industry.
The Munich Ifo Institute surveys around 2,300 export-oriented companies about their current business prospects every month. In view of the expanding Omikron variant, the answers of the companies again show a deterioration: The index for the expectations of the companies fell from 15.8 points in November to 12.1 points in December, as the economic researchers announced.
The value was last lower in January 2021. “Nevertheless, exports will probably increase in the first quarter of 2022, but more slowly,” said Ifo President Clemens Fuest. The automotive industry therefore had to deal with a “strong damper”. “Additional orders from abroad are still expected, but significantly less than expected in the previous month,” according to the Ifo Institute. The same applies to manufacturers of electrical equipment.
Mechanical engineering more confident
The manufacturers of textiles, food and print products are expecting a slight decline in their exports. In mechanical engineering, on the other hand, expectations improved, as the company survey showed.
The ifo Institute expects German exports to increase by 5.4 percent in the coming year. In the year that is coming to an end, growth of 7.8 percent should have been sufficient. Foreign trade was slowed down by global delivery problems, which are likely to continue in 2022. Car manufacturers, for example, complain about a shortage of semiconductors.