At 15.6 billion euros, exports from the German electrical and electronics industry in June 2020 fell 6.4% short of the previous year's figure. "The most recent decline was significantly lower than in the two previous months, in each of which it amounted to a fifth," said ZVEI Chief Economist Dr. Andreas Gontermann. "However, June 2019 was also a fairly weak month, which makes this year's figure look better in comparison." In the first half of this year as a whole, aggregated industry exports amounted to 96.5 billion euros. This was 8.7% less than in the same period last year.
Imports of electrotechnical and electronic products to Germany increased slightly by 1.7% year-on-year to 14.4 billion euros in June. Cumulatively from January to June 2020, however, imports fell by 6.6% to 89.6 billion euros.
The five largest buyers of German electrical exports in the first half of this year were China, the USA, France, Poland and the Netherlands. Only in business with the People's Republic was there growth both in June (+15.1% year-on-year to €1.9 billion) and from January to June (+6.5% to €11.0 billion).
Exports to the USA in second place and France in third place, on the other hand, fell sharply - the former by 10.9% in June and the first half of the year (to €1.3 billion and €8.4 billion respectively), the latter by 12.9% (to €971 million) and 16.7% (to €5.5 billion). Exports to Poland fell slightly by 0.3% to €830 million in June. In the first half of the year, they achieved a small increase of 0.8% to €4.7 billion. Deliveries to the Netherlands were again in sharp decline. In June, they fell by 9.8% year-on-year to 786 million euros and by 12.6% from January to June to 4.7 billion euros.
"The Czech Republic, Italy, Austria, the UK and Switzerland took sixth to tenth place in the customer ranking in the first half of 2020," says Gontermann. "In the period from January to June, only negative rates were recorded here." Industry exports to the Czech Republic fell by 3.7% year-on-year to 4.4 billion euros, to Italy by 14.7% to 4.2 billion euros, to Austria by 10.2% to 4.0 billion euros, to the UK by 20.3% to 3.8 billion euros and to Switzerland by 0.9% to 3.4 billion euros. With the exception of deliveries to Switzerland (+8.0% to €565 million), there were also declines across the board in the most recent reporting month of June. Exports to the Czech Republic fell by 13.6% to €654 million and those to Italy by 11.7% to €744 million. At the same time, exports to the UK fell by 9.7% to €636 million and those to Austria by 2.4% to €682 million.
