Since its early days Lombardini has had a link with agricultural machinery makers.

Deutsche Babcock, a machinery maker, said earlier this week that a drastic reorganization was needed in response to an expected 1996 loss of 400 million marks.

Toshiba, a leading Japanese electric machinery maker, currently supplies Apple with semiconductors for its personal computers.

But those plans were never realized, and for 15 years the land, which used to belong to the Bullard Company, a machinery maker, has been unused.

Much of the equipment was imported from Britain and therefore did not stimulate machinery makers.

Udo Pfeiffer, the head of a small machinery maker in the Rhineland, is a disappointed man.

It is still used by agricultural machinery makers on some of their units.

Regional economies have come to depend on exports to China; Japanese machinery makers, for instance, are already struggling with weaker sales.

Increases in productivity made by Japan's largest companies, particularly automobile, electronics and machinery makers, averaged about 14 percent this year, according to economists.

By year-end, early cyclical stocks, like machinery makers, which do well in the beginning of a recovery, ran up on signs of economic strength.