By Kari Williamson

The loss came as sales dropped 5% to €921m, hit by project postponements in Southern Europe.

Furthermore, Nordex was hit by an 80% tumble in orders from China over the course of the year, leading to a 57% drop in Asian sales. Although US sales doubled, this was not enough to cancel out the negative effect.

Nordex has already started a cost-cutting programme, aiming to bring down costs by 15% by the end of 2012. As part of the cuts, the wind turbine maker has laid off 253 full-time employees.

The company is also in talks with potential partners for a joint venture for its offshore wind turbine business.

Fairer wind in 2012

On a more positive note, the order intake for the year reached €1.1 billion, up 32% from 2010, and the value of firm orders jumped 70% to €698m. This has led the Nordex board to issue an outlook for 2012 expecting sales of €1-1.1bn and an EBIT margin of 1-3%.