VDMA: The new man on the prime of Germany’s key trade | EUROtoday

Bertram Kawlath is ready. “I attended a seminar,” says the entrepreneur with a wink. The title: “Why don’t they just do what I say?” The workshop that passed off a number of years in the past was truly centered on the subject of worker administration.

At that point, Kawlath joined his circle of relatives enterprise, Schubert & Salzer, as managing companion. In the longer term, the 53-year-old additionally desires to make use of the information he has acquired elsewhere: for trade with politicians – particularly as the brand new president of the Association of German Mechanical and Plant Engineering (VDMA).

The common assembly of the big industrial affiliation elected Kawlath as Karl Haeusgen’s successor on the prime of the VDMA for the subsequent 4 years. And there may be loads of political work ready for the Hesse-born entrepreneur.

The key German trade, mechanical engineering, is in a disaster and is slipping deeper into the issue zone with every passing month in view of the persistent decline in incoming orders. The VDMA predicts that manufacturing will collapse by a formidable eight p.c to 240 billion within the present 12 months.

And the work of the federal authorities performs an necessary position on this, in line with the mechanical engineering firms. “The business environment is characterized by numerous crises,” explains Kawlath. That in itself is nothing new. “But there is a lack of political determination to make the right adjustments to effectively address these crises.”

A present member survey reveals the place the trade sees a necessity for political motion. The prime precedence is subsequently the problem of lowering forms, which 92 p.c – virtually each one of many virtually 1,000 respondents – talked about.

But accelerating approval processes and modernizing the infrastructure are additionally excessive on the listing of wants, as are increased schooling spending and reductions in taxes and charges. “The topics have been the same for years,” criticizes Kawlath.

“Isn’t that terrible?” Politicians should lastly enhance the financial and political framework for investing and innovation in order that home firms can survive in worldwide competitors.

“The patience of many decision-makers in companies is overstretched, and what’s more, it’s at the end,” warns the brand new president, who at 53 is among the youngest within the affiliation’s 130-year historical past.

“I am a failed diplomat”

However, affiliation work is just not new territory for Kawlath. For the previous 4 years he has been vp of the VDMA, chairman of the Bavarian regional affiliation and on the similar time a member of the board of trustees of the VDMA Impuls Foundation. He additionally sat on the SME Committee of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) for over 20 years and was a member of the General Presidium of the German Association for Foreign Policy (DPAG) from 2006 to 2019.

“I’m a failed diplomat,” jokes Kawlath. “I was then able to live out this passion at the DPAG,” says the entrepreneur, who truly needed to work for the Foreign Office as a younger man and subsequently wrote his ultimate thesis in historical past on the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg with the historian Michael Stürmer about Germany’s Eastern coverage. Previously, Kawlath briefly tried enterprise administration. “But that’s when I realized that I’m better with words than with numbers.”

Nevertheless, the historian’s path finally led straight to his household’s firm. At that point, the valve producer Schubert & Salzer, based mostly in Ingolstadt, owned the Erla ironworks within the Ore Mountains and later the Feinguss Lobenstein metal foundry in Thuringia.

And as a result of no appropriate managing administrators may very well be discovered who needed to run these firms, which had been based mostly simply earlier than the Czech border, the then junior member of the corporate was despatched in – and he ended up staying for nearly 20 years.

Kawlath solely returned to the corporate headquarters in Ingolstadt at the start of the 12 months. Because two exterior managers have been working the operational enterprise there for years, the shareholder is concentrating on strategic points – and within the subsequent 4 years on lobbying for the VDMA. “Anyone who has time is welcome to join associations,” he feedback smugly.

But Kawalth may additionally have been chosen for an additional purpose. Schubert & Salzer is a typical firm in German mechanical engineering: medium-sized, family-run, 200 staff, 60 million euros in annual gross sales, 80 p.c export quota.

“Flood of regulations from Berlin and Brussels”

This signifies that Bavaria has the identical challenges and issues as a lot of the different 3,600 VDMA members. “The flood of regulations from Berlin and Brussels is particularly crushing smaller companies, our tax rate for companies is significantly higher than the OECD average and there are no new free trade agreements that open up markets for us,” lists Kawlath. “All of this can and must be addressed now, we can’t waste any more time.”

Kawlath desires to advocate for the pursuits of small individuals, without spending a dime commerce and towards tariffs, in addition to for enhancing native situations in Germany and Europe. “Putting pressure on international value chains with new bureaucratic ideas is not helpful,” he criticizes rules such because the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, expanded reporting necessities for the subject of sustainability or the deforestation regulation, which has been suspended in the interim.

Insight comes from Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein. “We need active economic policy,” calls for the CDU politician on the VDMA common assembly at his headquarters in Wiesbaden. “Stimulus package instead of stoner law” must be the motto, says Rhein, taking a swipe on the site visitors gentle coalition. He recommends mechanical engineering to the federal authorities as a yardstick.

“The industry is a source of inspiration and an early warning system. It would be better to listen to their warning signals instead of dismissing them as businessmen’s complaints.” Rhein typically believes that the issues in Germany are of his personal making.

“We are at the forefront when it comes to burdens,” explains the Prime Minister. “We now need a change in mentality.” We have to let the economic system do its factor as a substitute of introducing the third, fourth and fifth safety ranges and thus increasingly regulation and forms.

At Kawalth’s aspect as vice presidents sooner or later can be Alexander Jakschik, CEO of the household firm ULT from Löbau in Saxony, a producer of techniques for the efficient removing of airborne pollution or for lowering air humidity. On the opposite hand, Verena Thies, managing companion of the textile equipment producer Thies from Coesfeld in North Rhine-Westphalia, is concerned.

Carsten Dierig is a enterprise editor in Düsseldorf. He experiences on Handel and client items, Mechanical engineering and the Steel trade in addition to about Recycling and medium-sized firms.