Munich (dpa / lby) – Bavaria’s most important branch of industry is currently only seeing better foreign business thanks to inflation. In the metal and electrical industry, export sales in the first three quarters rose nominally – i.e. including price increases – by 7.5 percent, the metal employers’ associations bayme and vbm announced on Monday. This corresponds to goods worth around 100 billion euros. In terms of volume, however, exports fell by three percent.
“In addition, the global economy is clouding over, in certain markets the demand for goods from the Free State is already falling noticeably,” said the managing director of both associations, Bertram Brossardt. From January to September, the value of exports to France fell by 5.2 percent, to Italy by 6.7 percent and to Austria by 3.1 percent.
There was a large increase in value of 26.2 percent in exports to the USA, boosted by the weak euro, which makes Bavarian products cheaper for US importers. Exports to China, the second largest export market, only increased by 2.6 percent.