„It is now almost exactly three years since we sat in this very same place and ventured to make a forecast for ACHEMA 2006“, Dr. Alfred Oberholz, Chairman of DECHEMA e.V., said on the occasion of the Economic Press Conference in Frankfurt am Main. „Three years ago the economy was picking up, the chemical industry was flourishing as was engineering, and both were profiting from the development of emerging markets like China and India. Today the economic environment gives less cause for optimism.“ VCI headlined its last quarterly report „Chemistry falls prey to the global economic crisis“. VDMA’s caption was „Poor start for engineering in 2009“. As the world’s leading event for the process industries, ACHEMA cannot dissociate itself from its environment – even if we it can be boasted that bookings, both in terms of exhibitor numbers and exhibition area, have already reached the 2006 level. From 11 to 15 Dechema looks forward to welcoming 4000 exhibitors from 50 different countries, and attendance figures, too, promise to follow this trend. The Congress will present a record-breaking total of 925 lectures on cutting-edge research and development in 18 parallel sessions.
„What rankles most is that the branches have really made many good decisions in the last few years“, said Dr. Oberholz. Portfolios have been subjected to rigorous scrutiny and optimised, production processes have been trimmed to improve efficiency, product quality upgraded to a high standard. In spite of this, chemistry and engineering have not been able to avoid the chain reaction. A lack of buyers in the automotive and other industries results in chemical products remaining in the warehouses.
German companies have been quick to react: VCI reports that, in the fourth quarter, chemical production was reduced by 11.4 %. Companies are only working at 75 % capacity, this is to prevent excessive stockpiles. The branch hopes that this measure will stabilise production at a low level when buyers’ stocks are depleted. In the USA, too, many production facilities stand idle. Compared with the international competition, German companies are now benefiting from the fact that many of them used the years of plenty to render their financing less vulnerable, enabling them to emerge better equipped for the market upswing.
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