9/15/2008

Bavaria’s Economics Minister Müller reports on export trend in first half of 2008

MUNICH Demand is still high for products Made in Bavaria: Exports once again went up by 5.5 percent in the first half of 2008. "Bavarian exports have succeeded in holding their own even in the face of an increasingly difficult international environment. To date, our companies have coped well with the strong euro, the high oil prices and the consequences of the financial market crisis. Despite the slowdown in the global economy, we are still on the right track for setting the 15th export record in succession. Our strategy of helping small and medium-sized companies in particular to enter the global markets continues to pay off", commented Bavaria’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Emilia Müller, referring to the Bavarian export figures just released for the first half of 2008.

In the first six months of this year, Bavarian exports were 5.5 percent up on 2007 at euro 80.1 billion. Industry’s export share came to 49.7 percent.

Müller: "That means that one out of every two jobs in industry now depends on foreign business." Over the same period, imports increased by 7.1 percent to euro 64.5 billion. Driven by strong price rises, imports of raw materials surged ahead by a vigorous 43.6 %. The export surplus reached euro 15.6 billion.

While the volume of exports as a whole continued to rise, the picture in the first half of the year has become more differentiated. Supplies to the USA, for example, dropped by nearly 5 percent to below the euro 8 billion mark, reflecting both the strong euro and the weaker US economy. Exports to certain European countries also fell: Italy – 1.3 %; Spain – 3.3 %; Belgium 2.2 %. "As major customers like Austria (+3.6 %), the Netherlands (+3.6 %) and France (+3.3 %) bought more goods from Bavaria during the same period, exports to the eurozone countries nevertheless increased on aggregate by a moderate 1.6 percent", the Minister continued. Austria claimed second place among the most important importing countries in the world after the USA and ahead of Italy.

Müller: "The rather subdued trend within the eurozone was compensated by steady dynamic trade with the aspiring economies in Central and Eastern Europe." Particularly big increases were recorded by Bavarian supplies to the Czech Republic (+ 12.2 percent), Poland (+ 17.8 percent) and Russia (+ 29.7 percent). Bavarian exports to booming China increased even more vigorously (+ 30.2 percent). And exports to the OPEC States and Latin America also developed very well with a plus of 16.5 and 20.4 percent respectively.

Bavarian export winners are still motor vehicles and machinery, these sectors recording increases of 3.3 percent and 7.8 percent respectively. Exports of electrical engineering products went up by 5.1 percent, and chemical products by 6.9 percent. These four categories of goods alone reached an export value of euro 58 billion, i.e. nearly three quarters of Bavaria’s total exports. The star performer in terms of growth was the food industry, which managed to step up its exports by over 20 percent to euro 3.8 billion in the first half of the year.

Source: Invest in Bavaria

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