Less turnover, more appreciation and circular economy as an opportunity
March 3, 2021The Gesamtverband Kunststoff-Verarbeitende Industrie e. V. (GKV) took stock of plastics processing in Germany for 2020 at its annual business press conference on Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2021. Last year, industry sales fell by 5.6 percent to 61.5 billion euros.
A total of 14.2 (- 2.8 percent) million tons of plastics were processed in Germany last year. The number of employees fell by 4.1 percent to 322,000.
The ambivalence between confidence and uncertainty among companies, which was already established for 2019, has intensified under the impact of the corona pandemic. Despite the sharp drop in sales in 2020, around half of the entrepreneurs surveyed in the GKV survey are expecting sales to rise again in 2021, but profits to fall.
During the press conference, current challenges in the industry and its segments were analyzed. While demand for the packaging industry and in the vehicle and transport sector picked up again in the last quarter of 2020, the lack of raw material availability and increased raw material prices in these areas will ensure that developments will remain fragile in the coming months.