The industrial valves sector was able to stand its ground in the first half of 2020 despite the corona crisis but is affected currently with decline in demand. The foreign sales fell by 5% in the period January to September 2020, whereas the sales in Germany rose by 10% at the same time thus, the manufacturers achieved a sales increase of 1%. The German industrial valve industry achieved an increase in sales in all segments, due to stable domestic demand from January to September.

 However, due to a sharp drop in foreign business, sales of shut-off valves shrank by 2% overall, whereas, sales of control, safety and monitoring valves still increased by 4%. A glance at the order books shows that the negative trend of recent months will continue in the near future. In the period from January to September 2020, German industrial valve manufacturers exported goods worth around € 3 billion abroad, representing a decline of 10.5% compared to the same period last year.

 Business with Germany’s most important trading partner, China, picked up again somewhat after a sharp dip at the beginning of the year and is currently minus 1.4% below the previous year’s level, with total fittings worth 401.4 million euros delivered. For the USA, second most important customer country, the deliveries slumped by 18.1% to € 269.0 million. France maintained its third place among the most important sales markets with a purchase volume of € 162.2 million, with 12.5% percent below the previous year’s level.

Among the key customer countries, only Switzerland with a rise of 5.3% to € 113.1 million and Russia with 4.3% more goods (€ 107 million) delivered, stood out positively. However, there are some indications that this will not remain so in the coming months and several companies are using the time to get fit in terms of digitalization focusing on remote selling.

"In the coming months, we expect to see a sharper decline in sales. It will presumably be some time before the industry economy can regain momentum again in the wake of the recovery of the global economy expected in 2021. Against this background, we currently expect a 3% drop in sales for 2021," predicts Wolfgang Burchard, Managing Director - VDMA Armaturen.

For more information: www.vdma.org