Due to robust domestic and eurozone demand, German industrial orders increased in December, exceeding expectations and registering the largest increase in more than a year.
Seasonally and calendar-adjusted, new orders grew by 3.2% from the previous month, the federal statistics office reported on Monday.
After a downwardly revised decline of 4.4% in November, an analyst survey conducted by Reuters had predicted a month-to-month improvement of 2.0%.
According to the economics ministry, “demand in the industrial sector has steadied at the end of 2022.”
The ministry also stated that the economic slowdown is likely to be milder in the winter than initially anticipated based on the most recent order data and the recent improvement in the business climate.
German manufacturers experienced a modest increase in 2023.
improved outlook
the final Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for manufacturing from S&P Global increased to 47.3 in January from 47.1 the previous month, providing optimism for the coming year. However, new orders continued to be the key factor holding down the headline index.
According to the statistics office, large-scale orders are mostly to blame for the increase in December. Large-scale orders excluded, the month’s decline was 0.6%.
As Ralph Solveen, deputy chief economist at Commerzbank, noted, “December’s increase offsets a significant portion of the previous month’s decline, but the trend in orders continues to point clearly downward, especially given that the increase in December alone was due to an unusually high number of large-scale orders.
According to Solveen, industry is more likely to slow down the German economy this year as order backlogs seem to be decreasing.
The Ifo Institute released a separate survey on Monday that revealed
the attitude of the German chemical industry
It got worse in January.
With a few notable exceptions, new orders decreased steadily throughout 2022 and, when corrected for the calendar, were 10.1% lower in December than they had been in the corresponding month of 2021.
When compared to December of 2019, new orders in December were 1.2% higher than pre-pandemic levels.
More economic data has been released in a statement from the statistics office.
