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?We continue to be successful in world markets and have also found new cus- tomers in attractive niches in 2011. At the same time, our regular customers are now again ordering not only in the newbuild- ing segment but precisely also in the retrofit area,? said Dr. Alexander Nürn- berg, Chairman of VDMA Marine and Offshore Equipment Industries, at a late 2011 press conference held in Hamburg. The German maritime economy is an es-sential industrial sector, which ? partic- ularly in the rather economicallyunderdeveloped regions of the northern coastal areas ? account for a high per- centage of the regional content. Here, the maritime economy has an unchangedsupporting part. Additionally, by integra- tion of component suppliers from thesouthern federal states, a substantial em-ployment is assured. In total there are about 400,000 people active in the Ger- man maritime economy, including ap- proximately 19,000 working in shipyards and an additional 72,000 in the ship andoffshore suppliers industry. Approxi- mately 22,000 people or so are active in one of the 400 shipping companies, e.g.shipping lines and ship brokers on shore. In addition the ship crews on German ships must be counted ? about 10,000Germans.SALES OF 11.1B EURO IN 2010 German marine and offshore suppliers generated sales of 11.1 billion Euro with72,000 employees in 2010. The export rate was 72 percent. Capacity utilization in production among marine equipmentsuppliers continued to improve. Short- time work is a thing of the past in most companies.The offshore supply business in the oil and gas market was not affected by the slump in sales and continued on thegrowth track as in recent years. Here the business development during the first half-year 2011, resulted in order incomesof 13 ships amounting to 1.8 billionEUR. Herewith, the orders on hand in- creased again to 1.6 billion gt, valued by 8.2 billion EUR (end of December 2010:1.4 billion gt; 7.4 billion EUR). The structure of orders on hand back up im-pressively that the German ship yards have successful performed their orienta- tion towards special shipbuilding. MORE INCOMING ORDERS Incoming orders recovered by eight percent in 2010 following the dramatic slump in shipbuilding orders from Octo-ber 2008 and the drop of 29 percent atsuppliers in 2009. The trend thus seems to have been reversed and slight sales growth can be expected for 2011. The sector has coped by itself with the ship-building crisis and expects to achieve continuous, modest growth in the next few years. Especially in the special ship- building sector ? from oceangoing cruis- ers to megayachts, from freight ferries to 22Maritime Reporter & Engineering News FEATURE GERMANYHeeding the Call Offshore German Maritime Economy The futuristic E-Ship Idriven by four Flettner-Rotors for emission reduction reasons, built by Lindenau Shipyard and Cassens Shipyard. Six percent drop in sales in 2010, but upturn in incoming orders improving production capacity utilization for 2011. By Peter Pospiech, Dipl.-Ing., Germany MR Feb.12 # 3 (18-25):MR Template 2/6/2012 12:38 PM Page 22