The further business development of the technotrans Group in 2017, too, will to a large degree depend on the world economy and on various project launches involving existing and new customers. A variety of indicators currently point to a degree of unease. The individual industry federations for the submarkets that are of relevance for the technotrans Group expect as steady development overall.

Because of technical or statutory requirements, the individual areas that make up the mechanical and plant engineering sector have their own cycles, which can therefore differ to some extent from the average for the sector overall. For example, the machine tool engineering sector and the plastics processing industry are highly dependent on the automotive industry, among other areas, while the printing industry depends on worldwide demand for the offset printing market as well as on digital and packaging printing. Meanwhile the laser industry features in a large number of production technologies (including, for example, medical technology and the semiconductor industry).

There remains growth potential in the relatively new market segment of digital and flexographic printing. Due to ongoing consolidation among printing houses in some industrial countries, the market volume in sheet-fed and web offset printing press business is, however, not expected to expand over the next few years. Sentiment among companies in the printing and media industry again deteriorated slightly in December 2016. For the coming six months, the seasonally adjusted index reflecting its business expectations fell below the prior-year level.

Since 2013 revenue from rubber and plastic machines has been growing at a slightly faster rate than that of the mechanical engineering sector. Growth expectations average out at 3.0 percent growth per year. The “K 2016” last October was a huge success. Over the show’s eight days, 232,000 visitors attended the triennial lead exhibition of the plastics processing industry in Düsseldorf. Interested parties from outside Germany made up 70 percent of the visitors. The 3,285 exhibitors were very pleased with how the trade show progressed.

The outlook for the world market development of laser systems for materials processing remains positive. For the next few years the photonics industry is forecast to achieve average growth rates around 1.5 times that of global gross domestic product (GDP). The LASER World of Photonics, one of the leading trade shows in the field of lasers and laser systems, will again be taking place in June 2017 in Munich.

A slight increase in global demand for capital goods is expected for 2017. All in all, machinery output should achieve average annual growth of just under one percent in real terms. As previously in 2015, output in metal production and processing again fell short of the prior-year level in 2016 but the ifo confidence indicators point towards a rise in output in this sector in 2017.

According to a study by the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI), until 2020 demand for medical technology will grow on average by 3 to 4 percent annually in industrial countries, and far more steeply in emerging countries. The world market for medical technology was worth around € 310 billion in 2014, with Germany accounting for over 10 percent of global production. The medical technology sector will remain a growth market.