More than 6,500 production facilities are engaged in mechanical engineering, the largest number of factories in any branch of German industry. Small and medium-sized firms have always predominated, and it is thanks to their flexibility and technological efficiency that Germany is among the world’s leaders in this field. Only about two percent of the factories have more than 1,000 employees. These are mainly firms which mass-produce or design and manufacture large, complex facilities. Just under 90 percent of the companies engaged in mechanical engineering are highly specialized small or medium-sized firms with fewer than 300 employees.

As suppliers of high-quality plant and production equipment for industry they play an important role in the economy as a whole. Their range of products is unparalleled: more than 20,000 different products, from consoles, printing machines and agricultural machinery to machine tools. In 1996 this branch of industry (in eastern and western Germany) with a total work force of 1,021,000 (the largest in any branch of German industry) produced a turnover of about DM 258 billion. Approximately 44.4 percent of the goods produced were sold abroad. This means that the Federal Republic accounted for one fifth of total exports of machinery among the Western industrial countries.