GERMANY – VDMA (Verband Deutscher Maschinen-und Anlagenbau, German Engineering Federation) which represents 3300 German and European mechanical and plant engineering companies remains optimistic for an improving business climate in 2021.

VDMA is expecting a 3% increase in product sales, this in spite of a second lockdown and associated restrictions. Dominik Wolfschütz, market analyst for the VDMA woodworking machinery department, in discussing the optimistic outlook for 2021 said, “Due to the improved order situation in the 4Q, we are optimistic about our forecast.” Especially in Germany, order activity had gone up significantly. In addition, selected larger projects and standard machine business were also good.

Utilization in many sub-segments of the wood and furniture industry is also stimulating businesses willingness to invest. For example, in the sawmill sector in European companies continue to look for new ways of processing of sawn timber into products such as glulam (GLT) and cross-laminated timber (CLT), as well as the pellet plant at the sawmill site. In the secondary sector, the construction-related segments are performing particularly well, with the furniture industry and kitchen manufactures, along with the window and door industry companies investing in new equipment to improve their businesses productivity.