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German firms gear for recovery
2009/2/16
Hard hit export-led businesses in Germany are preparing for an eventual upturn in trade.
Business is terrible for Hamburg, Europe''s second-biggest container port after Rotterdam, which handles around 10 percent of Germany''s foreign trade especially with China and Russia.
But many German companies are emphasising the need to be ready to cope with increased demand once the world economy picks up again.
"As management we need to be bold and make further, targeted investments in these difficult times," said Manfred Kuhr, deputy chairman of BLG Logistics Group, which handles 80 percent of the goods at the port of Bremerhaven.
Industry orders for Germany, which has been the world''s biggest exporter of goods since 2003, in December posted their biggest annual decline since reunification as demand for manufactured goods continued to slide.
Shipyards typically lag behind the cycle and VSM, the German shipbuilding association, says new orders have eased after production hit a record high last year. But it adds that suppliers to the shipbuilding industry are particularly busy.
Even if the recession is shaping up to be Germany''s deepest since World War Two and export-led economy Germany may be, as UBS analysts put it in a January 28 note, "in the middle of a perfect storm", some in the eye of that storm see opportunity.
BLG''s Kuhr in Bremerhaven is exposed to one of the toughest sectors: it is Germany''s biggest port for importing and exporting autos, sales of which have slumped by nearly one quarter globally.
"I can''t remember us having a downturn like this," Kuhr said. "I''ve been in the business for 35 years, we haven''t had anything like this before."
But even though business volumes are down, he expects the downturn to bottom out in the middle of this year, and says BLG is investing in car-transport infrastructure in Russia.
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2009/2/16