BERLIN
,
February 3, 2022
(press release)
–
After the business climate in the German printing and media industry had brightened somewhat towards the end of the year, it clouded over again in January. The business climate index calculated by the German Printing and Media Association fell by a seasonally adjusted 2.5 percent to 99.3 points compared to the previous month. It was clearly above the level of the previous year. However, it was still below its pre-crisis level of February 2020 - the minus was 3.1 points. Persistent supply bottlenecks for intermediate goods are visibly burdening the current business situation of the printing and media companies and are severely hampering their production activities at the beginning of the year. After the seasonally adjusted business situation index rose by 1.9 percent in December, it fell by 3.4 percent in January compared to the previous month to 98.1 points. The index was around 20 percent higher than in the same month last year, which was still characterized by strict corona-related restriction measures. However, it was around 3.7 points below the pre-crisis level of February 2020. Ongoing supply bottlenecks for intermediate goods visibly hampered the production activities of print and media companies at the beginning of the year. 86 percent of the companies surveyed stated that they were affected by production disruptions. Of these, 83 percent complained about the lack of raw materials and primary materials - an increase of 78 percentage points compared to the previous year. Due to the uncertainty regarding the duration of the supply bottlenecks, the print and media companies were less confident than in December about their expected business development for the next six months. In January, the seasonally adjusted index of business expectations fell by 1.6 percent to 100.5 points. The index is thus 3.4 percent above the level of the previous year. Only around 10 percent of companies currently expect their production to increase in the next three months. Around 14 percent expect their production activities to decline. The majority of those surveyed do not expect any change in the current production level and therefore do not expect the supply bottlenecks to ease significantly in the next three months. As a result, companies are also reluctant Background information on the bvdm economic telegram and information on taking part in the monthly ifo business surveys can be found at: bvdm-online.de/kt
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