"Logistics, and therefore also intralogistics, has become even more relevant in many customer industries as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Supply bottlenecks and material shortages are leading to changes in stockpiling and production supply concepts in many sectors. The demand for intralogistics solutions has increased accordingly," explains Steffen Bersch, Chairman of the Board of the VDMA Materials Handling and Intralogistics Association and CEO of the SSI Schaefer Group.

Due to the continued good order situation and a high order backlog from 2021, the trade association also expects positive business development for the industry in 2022 and production growth of 8%. This means that German suppliers are approaching pre-pandemic levels again this year. International markets with plenty of momentum Following the pandemic-related decline in exports in 2020, the trend in 2021 is also showing clearly positive momentum again. "We will not yet reach the export level we had before coronavirus in 2021. Nevertheless, we are very pleased that intralogistics investments are increasing again worldwide and that projects can be implemented," says Sascha Schmel, Managing Director of the VDMA Materials Handling and Intralogistics Association.

The EU domestic market remains the most important trading partner for German intralogistics and conveyor technology providers. Exports here increased by almost 9% year-on-year up to and including November 2021. France, the Netherlands and Italy are the main customers in this period. There was also export growth outside the EU in other European countries. Almost 38% more exports went to the UK alone between January and November 2021. The USA remained the largest single customer. German manufacturers recorded around 37% growth in exports to the USA for the 2021 period, while a further slight decline of just under 2% was recorded to China. In the country ranking, China is now only in 7th place for German intralogistics exports.