News & Events
Visitor in the outdoor area .
Aerial shot bauma .
The Entrance West during bauma .
Mining machinery sector optimistic about future With an increased in customers enquiries reported , machinery manufacturers hope bauma 2016 marks a turnaround in sales for the industry .
THE MINING ASSOCIATION , affiliated in the German Engineering Federation , the VDMA , is again reporting falling sales . Nevertheless , it is optimistic that 2017 will bring a return to profit . As regards the global market , too , the analysts are expecting things to improve in 2016 and 2017 . One reason for the cautious optimism is bauma , which takes place from April 11 to 17 , 2016 in Munich .
Experience shows that many customers delay purchasing decisions until bauma , where they can first get an overview of the world market offering . Also as regards to the rising number of customer enquiries , bauma is coming at a good time — an upturn would certainly do the sector a lot of good .
In 2014 , worldwide exports of mining machinery were around € 27.929 billion ( 2013 : € 31.087 bn ), which is a fall of 10.2 percent . The biggest exporting nation , when it comes to mining machinery , was the US , with € 7.694 bn ( 2013 : € 8.364 bn ). The only country to report a rise in exports was China , where the figures rose from € 3.940 bn to € 4.071 bn . Singapore was in third place in the statistics for exporting nations , with € 3.098 bn (€ 3.468 bn ), because of its high volume of transshipments of mining machinery in Southeast Asia . The US thus has a 27.5 percent share of world exports of mining machinery , China has 14.6 percent and Singapore 11.1 percent , followed by Germany with 7.0 percent .
In Germany , in the current year , machinery and plant worth € 3.62 bn is being built . That ’ s three percent less than in the previous year . At least this reflects a much lower annual drop in sales , especially in view of the figures for 2014 , when sales fell 29 percent as compared to 2013 . For 2016 , Dr Michael Schulte Strathaus , Chairman of the Mining Association , fears that sales will “ probably fall further , also by a single-figure percentage ”.
With an export share of 94 percent , the sector expects sales of only € 0.21 bn ( - 7.8 percent ) on the German domestic market this year , as compared to € 3.41 bn ( - 2.7 percent ) abroad . Most of the exports ( 17 percent ) go to the Mediterranean and the Middle East , and here Saudi-Arabia is the single biggest market , at almost nine percent . “ Together with Iran , governments there want to reduce their dependency on oil ,” says Schulte Strathaus , adding : “ Mining is being developed as an additional mainstay .” The second-largest region for sales of German mining machinery is Latin America , which accounts
24 Building & Investment | www . b-i . biz