Steel is the backbone of the German economy
as a basic industry, the steel sector is particularly important for the value-creation chains in Germany. The numerous innovations implemented by this industry and its close interrelations with other industrial sectors contributes towards the success of, for example, the car industry or machine construction. The steel sector supplies about one-fifth of the input purchases for machine construction and 12 per cent of those for the automotive industry. Other important customer sectors include electrical engineering, the building sector as well as steel and metal processing. With about 3.5 million employees, the steel-intensive sectors account for two out of every three jobs in the processing industry.