Plastics industry

Dip in demand also for industrial packaging (Photo: Pexels / Markus Spiske)

Manufacturers of plastic packaging are also suffering from weak demand: In the first half of this year, their sales fell by 6 percent compared to the previous year, as the IK Plastic Packaging Industry Association (IK, Bad Homburg; ) reports. In addition to the reluctance to buy in retail, the reason for this is the sharp decline in sales in other important customer sectors, such as the chemical industry.

An end to the crisis is not yet in sight, as a current IK member survey shows. “Two out of three companies in the industry rate the current economic situation as bad,” explains Managing Director Dr. Martin Engelman. That is significantly more than in the summer, when only every second company came to this assessment. “The bad news is: we haven’t bottomed out yet,” explains Engelmann, referring to the outlook for the fourth quarter. According to the survey, 51 percent of companies expect further declines in sales and even 69 percent expect falling profits by the end of the year.