Germany’s factory orders recovered in February on foreign demand, figures from Destatis revealed Thursday.
Factory orders rose 0.3 percent month-on-month in February, reversing a revised 3.5 percent decrease seen in January. Nonetheless, the pace of expansion was much weaker than the expected 1.5 percent rise.
Excluding major orders, new orders dropped 0.7 percent in February from the previous month.
In February, domestic orders fell 1.4 percent, while foreign orders grew 1.4 percent. New orders from the euro area gained 4.5 percent and new orders from other countries decreased 0.6 percent compared to January.
The manufacturers of intermediate goods reported a 0.5 percent drop in new orders. On the other hand, the manufacturers of capital goods showed an increase of 0.9 percent. For consumer goods, a decrease in new orders of 2.4 percent was registered.
On a yearly basis, manufacturing new orders increased 3.5 percent in February compared to the expected growth of 6.5 percent.
Given the recent weakening of confidence indicators combined with temporary and seasonal effects, the German economy could lose some steam in the second half of the year, Carsten Brzeski, an ING-DiBa economist said.
“Not now. The near term outlook looks still rosy,” Brzeski added.
Data showed that turnover in manufacturing decreased 2.1 percent month-on-month in February, which was bigger than the 0.5 percent drop posted in January.
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