OEM & Lieferant - Ausgabe 1/2021

67 Editorial by Elisabeth Klock and Dr. Rudolf Müller Dr. Rudolf Müller Shaping the recovery! The Covid 19 pandemic has completely unexpectedly sent the economy and industry into a downward spiral, not only in Germany but globally. Sales losses of unprecedented dimensions and job losses have to be overcome. But the recovery process has begun. The vaccines developed in Ger- many, Europe and the USA are creating the hopeful conditions to get the economy back on course along with government support mea- sures. The first signs are visible: the Chinese economy is moving back into growth. The international stock exchanges, barometers of future developments, are predicting a generally favourable outlook for 2021. And things are also happening in Germany. The automotive and supplier industry, with its exemplary innovative strength, is mastering the transformation process towards climate-friendly drive types with the development of new, forward-lookingmodel variants. The trend rever- sal in e-mobility seems underway. New registrations of purely electric and hybrid vehicles are increasing by triple-digit percentages from month to month. After a catastrophic 2020, the international vehicle markets are expected to grow again on a broad front in 2021, even if the pre-Corona level will not be fully regained yet. The 2021 forecasts for German mechanical engineering have improved significantly. Production growth of four per cent is expected. Thanks to widely implemented short-time working, companies, most of which are small and medium-sized, have been able to retain their skilled workers and are now in a position to react immediately and directly to the upturn in the markets. The pandemic has brought considerable momentum to all processes of digitalisation, which is creating demand in all areas of the IT industry. Despite the crisis, the majority of companies are investing in their IT systems or programmes and are thus creating sustainable digital structures. Picking up on this momentum and contributing powerfully to the recovery of the industry and the economy are challenges and tasks for the future taken on by the companies represented in this publication. OEM&Supplier is the cross-media forum for these companies to present their contributions to this process – be it products, services or innovations – in the form they choose and to bring them to the attention of a broad audience. In this issue, too, we give you, dear readers, the opportunity to get much more background and additional information through links, interactions and networking to web content and social media than is possible in pure print articles. Our thanks go to all authors, interview partners and advertisers for their loyalty and the good and trusting cooperation. You are cordially invited to participate in the next issue, which is expected to be published in September, with your contributions, interviews, company presentations and advertisements. We hope you enjoy reading and networking. Elisabeth Klock & Dr. Rudolf Müller www.oemundlieferant.de www.vek-onlineservice.de Elisabeth Klock