German supply chains – more durable, but not unbreakable

The supply chains are evolving

The Iran War has once again shown that trade relations with supposedly reliable partner countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar can be disrupted without warning. Even five years after the supply chain crisis that followed the COVID pandemic, the German economy still faces significant dependencies: Imports of certain intermediate goods and capital goods are so heavily concentrated on just one single exporting country that a disruption in that country could bring production in Germany to a standstill.

In fact, for one in five intermediate and capital goods that are important to Germany, more than 50% of imports in 2025 came from a single country of origin. In the electronics sector in particular, this level of dependence has actually risen significantly since 2019. Here, the share of goods with a very high concentration on a single country of origin rose from just 3% to 20%, with the import volume of the affected product groups amounting to a considerable 40 billion euros. By contrast, intermediate goods from the chemicals and mechanical engineering categories are now imported from a broader range of suppliers, meaning that the German economy’s dependence in these areas has decreased.

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