Until recently the century-old Siemens gas turbine plant in Berlin was working flat- out to service orders for its powerful high-tech machinery, 90 per cent of which are shipped overseas.

But two years after Siemens seemed to have recovered from the 2008-2009 financial crisis to achieve record profits in 2011, these orders began to slow last year as investment confidence in the eurozone waned. In November, the German engineering conglomerate that sells everything from trains to medical scanners and power transmission equipment responded with a €6bn cost-cutting programme.

Siemens never expected the recovery to be so brief, Joe Kaeser, chief financial officer, explained last year: “The frequency of changes in the economic cycle has hugely increased. If you assume that the cycle is now at an end then it has lasted, at most, only half as long as we were used to until now?.?.?.?You can argue about whether this [shorter-cycle] is the ‘new normal’, as some economists say?.?.?.?That remains to be seen. But it’s a huge change for global industry.”