Germany’s sheet forming companies lost substantial business in 2024, but have nevertheless expressed modest optimism going forward, says their interest group, Industrieverband Blechumformung – IBU.
IBU’s 540 companies, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, saw 2024 revenues drop by 12.2% year-on-year, Kallanish learns. Still, “despite lower revenues and a difficult regional environment for industrial production, sheet formers are looking ahead,” says IBU managing director Bernhard Jacobs. The companies’ sentiment has improved slightly since the end of 2024, but it is only a thin silver lining, Jacobs says.
One gentle booster for sentiment is the recent change of German government, and the hope for an improvement in the economic climate that this might bring. Policymakers have apparently become aware of the massive hurdles for businesses presented by bureaucracy, energy costs and taxation, Jacobs says. But he cautions that “our credit of confidence will soon run out if the government does not take measures quickly.”
By comparison with the pre-Covid year of 2019, sheet formers lost 15.5% of production volume and 10.6% of jobs in 2024, according to IBU.
Christian Koehl Germany
