opinion poll
Companies postpone investments because of high energy prices
According to a survey, many companies are postponing investments due to the sharp rise in energy prices – and have to raise prices. Photo: Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The explosion in energy costs is already causing problems for many companies. For customers, this should primarily result in rising prices.
Due to the sharp rise in energy prices, many companies are postponing investments and have to raise prices. This is the result of a representative survey commissioned by the Foundation for Family Businesses.
The results were available from the German Press Agency. Rainer Kirchdörfer, head of the foundation, said Germany had dramatically lost its competitiveness in energy policy, even before the current crisis. “We need a policy that corrects this distortion of competition and stops the soaring energy prices.”
According to a survey by the Ifo Institute, 40 percent of companies are already fully affected by the explosion in energy costs. Since many companies have secured themselves through long-term supply contracts, the price increase does not have an immediate impact everywhere. A quarter of the companies stated that they expected the main burden from higher energy prices in the second half of this year. Another quarter of the companies surveyed expect this to happen in 2023.
Almost 90 percent of the companies surveyed said they would probably have to raise prices as a countermeasure. Three quarters want to expand investments in energy efficiency.
Around 46 percent of the companies said that they want to reduce investments. Only a small part of the companies want to relocate their business premises abroad. According to the survey, 11 percent are considering giving up energy-intensive business areas entirely – 14 percent are considering job cuts in Germany. According to the foundation, 1,100 companies took part in the survey, including 950 family businesses.