The production of machines for the building material industry by German manufactures has been on a steady volume in the years 2013-2017 followed by a decline towards 2019. In this two years the volumes were down by approximately 30%.

The reasons for this trend are manifold. An important factor for the cement industry is the increase of production cost through implementation of various tax schemes enforcing CO₂ reduction. Consequently, key focus of investments has been and will be in the coming future on the reduction of specific CO₂ emissions, e.g. efficiency improvements of thermal and electrical energy consumption, substitution of clinker, substitution of alternative fuels to name some of them. In this declining market, COVID drove the economy down even further. Order entry hit the bottom end of Q2 2020 at a level of 50% compared to 2015.

The picture above reported by the German machine builders association VDMA reflects also the development of ToniTechnik: low order intake at the beginning of the year forced us to reduce the working hours of our employees partly down to 50%. Since May 2020, we have seen the recovery of the market and step by step orders increased to a level last time seen in summer 2019. Our expectation is, that 2021 will bring us back to a profitable level as we have seen it for a long period of time with a target growth in order entry of almost 50% vs. 2020. This growth will not come only by a globally successful fight against the COVID pandemic, but is based on numerous measures partly already implemented in 2020.