Complaints from German industry about missing materials decreased in December for the third month in a row.
50.7 percent of companies are still suffering from this, after 59.3 percent in November, as the Munich Ifo Institute announced on Tuesday in its survey.
"A resolution of the bottlenecks now seems to be emerging in many sectors," said the head of the Ifo surveys, Klaus Wohlrabe.
"This will support the economy in the coming months." Depending on the development of the corona situation in China, there could also be setbacks in the bottlenecks.
The German economy obtains more goods from the People's Republic than from any other country.
According to the Ifo data, the number of companies with material shortages has fallen in almost all sectors of industry.
However, some of the current values are still well above their long-term average.
Mechanical engineering and the automotive industry continue to be hardest hit: around 75 percent report problems here.
In the electrical industry it is still around 63 percent.
The paper industry is currently the least affected at 11.3 percent.
Missing preliminary products cost billions
German exporters are hoping that trade will pick up again as bottlenecks ease.
"Many companies have quite large order backlogs that could not be processed in the past few months due to material shortages," said Dirk Jandura, President of the Federal Association of Wholesale, Foreign Trade and Services (BGA).
"Since the material bottlenecks are weakening, there should be catch-up effects here." This will support foreign trade in the new year.
Microchips, plastics, packaging: according to a study, a lack of preliminary products from abroad has cost German industry dearly.
From the beginning of 2021 to mid-2022, goods worth almost 64 billion euros could not be manufactured due to supply bottlenecks, as the institute for macroeconomics and business cycle research (IMK), which is close to the trade unions, found out in a study.