The official data that was released on Tuesday showed that German industrial orders dropped for the third month in a row in April. This was due to the fact that Russia’s war in Ukraine depressed the outlook for Europe’s largest economy. According to the statistics supplied by the ministry of the economy, the number of new orders dropped by 2.7% in comparison to the previous month. Incoming orders were 6.2% lower than they were at this time last year, when the pandemic caused by the coronavirus was exerting a greater amount of pressure on the business. The decline was notably noticeable in capital goods, which are employed in manufacturing. As compared to the previous month, capital goods had a decrease of 4.3%. The number of orders placed for intermediate items was down by 0.3 percent, while the decrease in demand for consumer goods was 2.6 percent. The number of orders that came in from within Germany decreased by 0.9%, while the volume of orders that came in from outside of Germany decreased by 4%, with demand from the eurozone suffering the most, down by 5.6%.
Despite the general negative trend, there were several industries that saw an improvement in their volumes. For example, orders in the mechanical engineering industry increased by 3.8%. In contrast, Germany’s flagship automobile industry experienced difficulties, with orders falling by 8.6 percent month-over-month. Despite the current slump, the ministry reported that businesses in the industry continued to have “full order books.” Despite this, it was stated that “weaker in the next months” was the forecast for the economy in the coming time period. Late in April, the German government announced that it would reduce its projection for economic growth in 2022 from the prior figure of 3.6 percent down to 2.2 percent.
Reference:
AFP, and Frankfurt. “German Industrial Orders Fall Again.” The Daily Star, 8 June 2022, https://www.thedailystar.net/business/global-economy/news/german-industrial-orders-fall-again-3041951
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