"In view of the challenging macroeconomic environment, industry exports have thus remained robust to date," said ZVEI Chief Economist Dr. Andreas Gontermann. In the first three quarters, the value of electrical and electronic exports totaled 180.3 billion euros - an increase of 8.2 percent compared to the same period last year.

The development of exports was once again exceeded by that of imports: Imports of electrotechnical and electronic products to Germany increased by a quarter (+25.3%) year-on-year to 22.9 billion euros in September. For the first nine months of this year as a whole, this represents an increase of 18.9% to 189.0 billion euros. "Everything points to an import surplus this year - the first in more than 20 years," says Gontermann.

The USA was the strongest buyer of German electrical exports in September. With an increase of two fifths (+ 39.3%) compared to the same month last year to 2.3 billion euros, there was a particularly high increase in deliveries here. Electrical and electronic exports to China, which normally leads the export rankings, also came in second place in September with a value of 2.3 billion euros (+5.5%). France (+ 3.3% to €1.2 billion), the Netherlands (+ 12.3% to €1.1 billion) and Italy (+ 10.0% to €1.1 billion) followed in third to fifth place.

Poland (- 0.6% to € 1.0 billion), Austria (+ 8.5% to € 930 million), the Czech Republic (+ 1.9% to € 889 million), the United Kingdom (- 5.1% to € 836 million) and Switzerland (+ 19.0% to € 778 million) made up the second half of the top 10 customer countries. Only business with the United Kingdom thus recorded a noticeable decline in September.

"Driven by the high level of industry exports to the USA, exports to America as a whole also expanded strongly in September - by 37.8% year-on-year to €3.0 billion," said Gontermann. Both deliveries to North America (+ 39.9% to € 2.5 billion) and Latin America (+ 28.9% to € 541 million) recorded high growth. Cumulatively from January to September, electrical exports to America rose by 21.2% to €22.8 billion (North America: + 23.4% to €18.6 billion, Latin America: + 12.1% to €4.2 billion).

In September 2022, electrical exports to Europe increased by 5.2% to 12.9 billion euros and those to the eurozone by 9.7% to 6.7 billion euros. In the first nine months of the year, deliveries to Europe as a whole increased by 4.6% to €112.5 billion. Deliveries to the eurozone increased by 7.6% to 58.8 billion euros.

In September, German electrical and electronic products worth 4.9 billion euros were delivered to Asia - an increase of 16.1% compared to the previous year. In the first three quarters of this year, the increase amounted to 11.4% to 40.9 billion euros.