According to the VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association, the order situation in the industry has improved, as have the prospects for the coming year.
 

Prices have risen by five percent compared to the first quarter of 2024, the association reports. Sales were still down 17 per cent. 2024 was all in all another "year to forget" for German plastics and rubber machine manufacturers, with order intake, adjusted for price changes, falling by 21 per cent and sales by 19 per cent compared to the previous year. However, after three years in which hardly any new orders were placed and companies reached their limits, there are now signs of recovery in the first quarter, explained Ulrich Reifenhäuser, CEO of the VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association. ‘Orders have picked up noticeably again (price-adjusted +5 per cent compared to the same period last year), only sales are still lagging behind as expected, with a decline of 17 per cent,’ said Reifenhäuser. ‘We currently assume that the bottom of the order intake trough has been passed,’ adds Thorsten Kühmann, Managing Director of the VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association. ‘The industry will work its way up from this level in small steps over the coming months. This means that the K trade fair in October is coming at exactly the right time,’ Kühmann continues. ‘Companies will be able to present their solution expertise and innovations to a hopefully investment-friendly crowd of customers.’ According to its own information, the mechanical engineering industry will be represented at the K trade fair in 2025 by six VDMA member companies and a total of almost 40 exhibitors in the programme and exhibition in the VDMA pavilion. They will be showcasing how their technologies promote future-oriented plastics processing and recycling management. Only the uncertainties caused by US trade policy were currently dampening the mood. The trade association expects sales in 2025 to remain flat at best and decline by five percent at worst. The year 2025 would therefore be more of a transition year, but one with a positive outlook.
 
European plastics and rubber machinery manufacturers elected their new executive committee at the general meeting of the Europe's Association for plastics and rubber machinery manufacturers (EUROMAP) in Stuttgart on 6 June. Tobias Baur, CSO of German injection moulding specialist Arburg GmbH & Co KG, was elected as the new president of the European umbrella organisation, while Alessandro Grassi, CEO of Frigosystem S.R.L., an Italian manufacturer of temperature control units, was elected as the new vice-president. They succeed President Luciano Anceschi (TRIA S.p.A.) and Vice President Michael Baumeister (Brückner Group), who retired last year. According to its own statements, the new executive committee aims to achieve closer cooperation within the industry at European level.
 
Sources:

• Press release from VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery (5.6.2025)
• Press release from EUROMAP (6.6.2025)
• Image: © VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery