Frankfurt - "We as an industry are looking positively into the future," states Thomas Schiemann, the new managing director of the VDMA's Printing and Paper Technology Association. According to the trade association's latest economic survey, almost 55 percent of the companies surveyed have positive business expectations for the next 24 months.

Accordingly, printing and paper machinery companies reported 95 percent capacity utilization at the beginning of the year. "However, the positive situation at four-fifths of our member companies is clouded by the shortage of skilled workers and supply chain problems," reports Schiemann. Almost all of them are affected by the continuing shortage of electronic components.

Strong exports stabilise business situation

The export orientation of printing presses, paper converting machines and paper technology suppliers proved to be a success factor last year. Exports in 2022, for example, increased by 9 percent to 4.7 billion euros compared to the previous year. Of this, around 700 million euros went to the US market (up to12 percent) and 676 million euros to exports to China (up to 3 percent).

Broken down by region, the EU-27 countries remained by the main target market for printing and paper technology suppliers. This accounted 35 percent of all exports, followed by Asia with 27 percent, North America with 16 percent and Latin America with 8 percent.

This picture changes when looking at the branches of industry. For paper production machinery and equipment. Asia was the number one target market with 36 percent in 2022. Not only exports to countries such as China, India and Korea increased, also those to the EU 27: from 22 percent in 2021 up to 28 percent in 2022. Exports to North America were constant with 15 percent from 2021 to 2022.

In 2022, the printing press manufacturing market trend was mixed. Exports to China, for example, fell by over €70 million compared to the previous year to just €294 million. Exports to the United States rose by almost the same order of magnitude to €304 million. The demand for printing presses was also high in Italy, France, and the UK. In total, exports to these three countries increased by 124 million euros. Accordingly, the EU-27 remained the main target region with 36 percent, followed by Asia (28 percent) and North America (16 percent).

A different picture emerged the foreign business of German suppliers of paper converting machines in 2022. Here was a strong decline of requests in the important US market. The exports there reduced by a fifth to 151 million euros. This was balanced by a significant increase in exports to Mexico (plus 122 percent), China (plus 55 percent), the three EU countries Austria (plus 105 percent), Spain (plus 33 percent) and France (plus 19 percent) as well as Great Britain (plus 15 percent). The value of this growth added up to almost 130 million euros. By far the main target region for paper converting machinery remained the EU-27 with a 40 percent share, followed by Asia and North America with 15 percent each and Latin America with a 13 percent share of exports.

Holding its own in a difficult environment

"Against the backdrop of the continuing consequences of the pandemic in 2022, the impact of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine on energy prices, and in view of inflation and the continuing tense supply chains, our industry has held up very well", Schiemann sums up. However, the new year began with a damper. Order intake in the printing and paper technology sector fell extremely by 17 percent in January 2023. The paper sector is under pressure due to individual orders.

"But this is not a specific problem to our member companies," he reports. On the contrary, orders received at the beginning of the year fell by 18 percent in the entire mechanical engineering sector, in some branches even by 40 percent. The expectations are high for the drupa, the world's leading trade fair, which will again be held on site in Düsseldorf next year. Due to the Corona pandemic there was only a virtual.drupa last time. "Two-thirds of our member companies are already deep into drupa preparations twelve months before the start of the trade fair (28 May - 7 June 2024)," Schiemann declares. The trade fair will offer a multitude of technological highlights around the two megatrends of digitalization and sustainability. "Our member companies are working intensively on solutions for a sustainable climate-neutral circular economy - and are harnessing the possibilities of digitally networked process chains to achieve this," he explains. drupa 2024 will be the global stage for this development.