Like its counterparts in many other countries, the German ceramic industry has had to weather a variety of storms in recent years. It has seen much of its share of traditional ceramic manufacturing move to China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam, a revenue shift made more acute by the contraction of the global economy. As the new year begins, the world's finances are not yet in order, and jobs in lower-budget segments of the industry continue to migrate to countries like China, where a worker earns 5-10% of typical German professional's salaries and none of their benefits. Yet Rainer Telle, who for the past 4 years has served as president of Deutsche Keramische Gesellschaft, Germany's ceramics society, is bullish on his industry's and his country's economic prospects for 2011.
