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Export markets of German machinery industry 2008 - 2022

Machinery exports to the US peak in 2022, to China shrinking

Symbol picture trade war

This report highlights the development of the worldwide machine exports from Germany in 2022.

Update May 22nd, 2023 - In the wake of the world economic crisis export markets of the German machinery industry turned particularly to China and also to other developing countries while export shares to the former favored countries EU and the US clearly dropped.

Since 2014 export markets have been shifting back favoring those export countries that had prevailed before the world economic crisis: the EU and the USA. This shift back accomplished in 2017 and has been determining export structure since then.


This development continued essentially in 2022. The exit of the UK from the EU decreased the export share of machines from Germany to the EU to 44%. In 2022 it increases slighty to 45%.

Export shares of German machines to EU, BRIC, MIST countries and the US and Japan from 2008 to 2022.

Changes show up regarding the export shares of machinery to the BRIC countries (14%) and the USA and Japan (14%).

Machinery exports to the USA again clearly ahead of China

2020 the export shares for machines to the USA (10.9%) and China (10.8%) were almost at the same level. In 2022 the export share to the US peaked at 12.6% since 2008. At the same time, the export share to China shrinks from 10.8% (2020) to 9.4% (2022).


Following the global economic crisis, machinery exports to Russia rose to over 5% in 2012. As a consequence of the sanctions machinery exports have been declining since 2014 halving to 2.8% in 2016. In 2022, further sanctions halved this share to 1.3%.

Export shares of German machines to China, Russia, the US from 2008 to 2022.

Machine exports to countries with smaller export ratio rising again

Each of the MIST countries Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey take less than 5% of the machine exports from Germany. That is also true for Brazil and India belonging to the BRIC countries. Finally a small portion of machine exports from Germany is taken by Japan.

Export shares of German machines to Turkey, Brazil, Japan, India from 2008 to 2022.

Exports to these seven countries, each with export shares of less than 5%, accounted for 9.5% each in 2019 and 2020. In 2021 this figure decreases to 9.4%, the lowest value since 2008.


In 2022, however, the export share of these countries rises again to 10.3%. This is a value that fits into the range of the years 2010 to 2017.

 

 

Machine exports from Germany are often lagging behind the export countries' industrial production

A separate report shows that machine exports from Germany are often lagging behind the industrial production of the related export countries.