Wholesalers and foreign trade are expecting the industry to recover this year and next despite the ongoing supply bottlenecks and the corona pandemic.

However, many companies were increasingly skeptical about the next few months, emphasized the President of the Federal Association of Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Services (BGA), Dirk Jandura, on Wednesday in Berlin.

"In real terms - that is, after adjustment for prices - we assume that wholesalers will sell around three percent more goods and services this year," he said.

"In the new year, with growth of around three percent in real terms, we can hopefully leave the slump behind us."

However, all of this depends on the development of the corona pandemic and the geopolitical situation.

The expectations of the companies in this regard are increasingly clouding, said Jandura with a view to an association survey of the member companies.

Around 44 percent of them stated that they had "massive problems" in the procurement of primary products and raw materials for their own customers.

IfW significantly lowers economic forecast

"Above all, there is a lack of raw materials, operating resources, building materials, electronic parts, but also steel and chemical substances and packaging." As a result, prices in wholesale and foreign trade would rise significantly. Higher energy and fuel costs as well as significantly higher personnel costs left no other option. "Wholesale margins are low and we have to rely on passing price increases on," said Jandura.

In the meantime, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) has significantly lowered its forecasts for the German economy in view of the delivery bottlenecks and the fourth corona wave. After an increase in the gross domestic product (GDP) of 2.6 this year, the IfW economists believe that the economy will only achieve four percent growth in 2022 - 1.1 points less than assumed in autumn. "In return, it will then go up steeply in 2023 with 3.3 percent (previously 2.3)," it said in a message on Wednesday.

In the first year of the Corona crisis, 2020, the German economy shrank by 4.6 percent.

"Overall, the dent in the recovery process caused by the ongoing wave of infections is somewhat larger than we had expected in our autumn forecast," said IfW economic director Stefan Kooths.

“Thanks to the greater progress in vaccination, the setback will not be as serious as it was in the past winter half-year.

The economic consequences of the pandemic are still sensitive, but they are decreasing from wave to wave. "