Fan and motors manufacturer Ziehl-Abegg, has reported an increase in global sales of 9 per cent to €423m for 2014.

Whilst the business in Germany was up slightly on the previous year, the foreign companies generated significant growth, enabling the company to move further ahead with investments of more than €20m in the expansion of its production locations.

Ceo Peter Fenkl said: “We reaped the fruits of our professional approach to the internationalisation of our business, as with only a few exceptions the foreign companies posted double figure growth rates.”

The Russian crisis has had an impact with the companies in the Ukraine and Russia seeing sales fall sharply. However, the good growth achieved at an international level by the company has enabled it to compensate for these falls.

The positive growth is also reflected in the size of the workforce. Chief financial officer Achim Curd Rägle said: “For the first time we now employ more than 3400 people worldwide. That’s why we have reorganised our tried and tested programme of further training to create the Ziehl-Abegg-Academy.”

The company believes that the increase in sales is linked to the launch of new products. Chief technology officer Norbert Schuster said: 'The new products introduced over the past two or three years are now well-established in the market so this is also having a noticeable impact in the production area.”

In addition, he announced further new products for the current year which will open up new markets for the company. Not only has a major plant in Baden-Württemberg been added to the global production network but a production facility has also been established in Thailand for the local market.