“Developments turned out much better than expected at the beginning of the year,” said Thorsten Kühmann, Managing Director of the VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association. “The Association’s members are also optimistic regarding the outlook for incoming orders in all customer regions in the second half of the year.”

Although world trade had suffered a dramatic collapse, with German exports also sharply lower, German manufacturers successfully maintained their market position last year, accounting for 24 per cent of global deliveries. In the largest sales regions, Europe, America and Asia, they held a significant share in global deliveries at the end of the crisis year 2009.

In Europe as a whole, German equipment accounted for 31 per cent of global deliveries of machinery to customers; in the countries outside the EU it was as much as 39 per cent.

In Asia, just under 24 per cent of all machines purchased in 2009 were made in Germany. Germany therefore supplied more machines than the previous leader Japan. German suppliers are in first place in the Near and Middle East (29 per cent) and in Central and South Asia (25 per cent); however, Japan has a clear lead on the ASEAN markets and is slightly ahead in the Far East.

German machines are also very much in demand on the American continent. In North America they account for 26 per cent of global deliveries, in Central America 18 per cent and South America 20 per cent. More than one third of deliveries to Central America come from the US; in South America there is keen competition from Italy, the US and also from China.

Chinese suppliers of plastics and rubber machinery have carved out a 22 per cent share of the African market, where, with 19 per cent, Italian competitors also have the edge on the German industry, in third place with 15 per cent.