Germans to East

VDMA (the German plastics and rubber machinery association) highlights that the export of German plastics and rubber machines have significantly moved to Asia, at the expense of Europe and Americas.
The total export of machines stopped just over 2.6 billion euro in 2009, that is 33.9% less than 2008, whilst the import (539 million euro) recorded -36.7%, the lowest level since 2002-2003. In light of this, the sales to Asian markets, albeit decreasing by 17.2% with respect to 2008, counted for 36.5% of 2009 total, compared to 29.1% of the previous year, whilst the export in Europe declined to an overall 45.3%. Positive results as for India to which the export grew by nearly 20%; on the contrary, supplies to South East Asia fell by 3.6%, those to the Near and Middle East by 21.4% and to Far East by 26.2%.
In the meanwhile, the German Institute for Statistics released foreign trade figures of January 2010 which highlight a 27% decrease for import and 38% for export with respect to the same period of the last year; while considering the short period of reference, these are still very negative results. As for export of the main types of machinery, extruders and injection machines decreased respectively by 57 and 15%.