Germany's factory orders grew for the second straight month in March, albeit at a slower pace on weak domestic orders, data from Destatis showed Monday.
Orders grew 1 percent month-on-month in March, in line with expectations, but slower than the revised 3.5 percent increase in February. This was the second consecutive rise in orders following a sharp 6.7 percent decrease in January.
Excluding major orders, factory orders increased only 0.6 percent in March.
Domestic orders declined 3.8 percent, while foreign demand grew 4.8 percent in March. New orders from the euro area advanced 6.8 percent and that from other countries gained 3.5 percent.
Annual growth in factory orders almost halved to 2.4 percent in March from 4.7 percent in February.
At the same time, manufacturing turnover dropped 0.8 percent in March, reversing February's 1.3 percent increase.
The economy ministry said economic conditions in the manufacturing industry is favorable. This is reflected by the strongly brightened business climate indicators, the ministry added.
The Bundesbank earlier said the German economy is set to pick up considerably in the winter quarter of 2017.
New orders are highly volatile but today's figures suggest that the sharp fall in new orders at the start of the year was mainly the result of seasonal effects and technical corrections, Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING, said.
In fact, combined with buoyant confidence indicators today's new orders data suggest that industrial production could finally gather some momentum, the economist added.
There is increasing evidence that contrary to previous cycles industrial production could be the lagging factor of the current positive economic expansion, Brzeski noted.
Manufacturers of intermediate goods reported a 3.7 percent fall in orders. Meanwhile, the manufacturers of capital goods showed an increase of 3.7 percent. For consumer goods, an increase in new orders of 5.5 percent was registered in March.
by RTT Staff Writer
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