German industrial orders rose for a seventh month in September

11-09-2009 08:38

Today’s figures published by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology demonstrated that German factory orders continued to rise in September. This was the result of increasing foreign orders, which posted a 3.7% month-on-month rise, while domestic orders declined by 2.3%.

German industrial orders

September showed that factory orders increased by 0.9% monthly, as August demonstrated an upwardly corrected rise of 2.1%, while economists forecasted a 1% increase. In the yearly comparison, factory orders dropped 13.1%, after August showed a corrected decrease of 19.8%.

Faster improvement

Carsten Brzeski, senior economist at the ING Bank headquarters, stated: “Germany’s industrial sector points to a faster improvement than several pessimists expected. There are expectations that the engine of the German economy, the manufacturing sector, will grow sustainable.”
The present stable growth in factory orders indicates that the German industry has left the most intense stage of the economic slump behind. Industrial orders posted the largest decline in September last year, as it fell by 7.9% monthly, the biggest decrease in the current year.

Bottomed out

Germany’s economy found its path out of the recession in the second quarter as it grew by 0.3%, following a number of declines that began in the second quarter of last year. The largest Eurozone economy is expected to decline by 5% in 2009 and will probably grow by 1.2% in 2010 and by 1.7% in 2011, according to the Autumn prediction by the European Commission.

Carefully optimistic

Deutsche Bank Research reported recently that the 2010 prospects for the German industry are “carefully optimistic”, while the sentiment is improving and some main upstream sectors show a rebound in production. Last Tuesday, the German chemical industry association (VCI) forecasted that the industrial recovery is accelerating, spurred by Asian and Latin American demand. Recently, Markit Economics, an expert compiler of business surveys and economic gauges, provided figures that demonstrated that the German manufacturing sector rose for the first time since July last year.