Germany had a sales volume of 18 million tons of polymers (highest ever) in 2005 and showed a growth of 2.9% compared to 2004. This compared favourably with the GDP growth. Economists predict that Germany would have GDP growth of 2.5-3% in 2006. It is therefore expected that German plastics industry would have another good year in 2006.
Highest production growth was achieved by HDPE, which increased by 5.7% to 1.4 million tons, followed by PET with 4.7% growth to 0.45 million tons. Export grew by 3.2% to 12.2 million tons. The import reached a level of while the import of polymer was merely 1.8% at the level of 7.1 million tons. The trade balance increased to 5.06 million tons and thus showed a growth of about 5%