The material bottlenecks in German industry have recently decreased further. In April, 39.2 percent of the companies surveyed reported problems with the procurement of raw materials and preliminary products, after 41.6 percent in March, as the Munich Ifo Institute announced on Wednesday. In addition, the number of new orders has increased, so overall this is “good news for the industry,” said Klaus Wohlrabe, head of the Ifo surveys.
However, the situation is very different depending on the industry. The current value in four out of 18 sectors is below the respective long-term average. “A far-reaching relaxation is still pending in the industry,” said the institute. However, this does not mean a return to the supply chains that functioned largely smoothly before the start of the corona pandemic: “There is still a long way to go in the industry,” said the economist.
Big problem still exists in the automotive industry, where almost 70 percent of the companies reported material shortages. In the future, semiconductors in technology nodes larger than 40 nanometers will be needed there. Experts expect bottlenecks at least into 2025.
But even among the manufacturers of data processing equipment and optical and electronic products, there were even 73.5 percent who had delivery problems. In contrast, there was a sharp decline from 21.6 to 5.1 percent in the beverage industry.