Enlarge image
Rolls-Royce factory in Thuringia (symbolic image): An exceptional number of aircraft ordered
Photo: Martin Schutt/dpa
In December, German industry surprisingly recorded the strongest increase in orders in around three and a half years. New business increased by 8.9 percent compared to the previous month, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Tuesday. Economists surveyed by the Reuters news agency had only expected stagnation. The increase is due to an unusually large number of large orders in a number of industries. “In particular, an extraordinary number of aircraft were ordered,” it said. Without these effects, orders would have fallen by 2.2 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2023, order intake was 0.1 percent higher than in the previous three months, while for the full year it was 5.9 percent lower than in 2022.
Domestic orders rose by 9.4 percent in December compared to the previous month. Foreign demand increased by 8.5 percent. A large part of the overall positive development can be attributed to the area of “other vehicle construction” (aircraft, ships, trains, etc.): Here, incoming orders in December were more than twice as high (+110.9 percent) as in the previous month. In addition, large orders in the areas of manufacturing metal products (+18.0 percent) and in the producers of electrical equipment (+38.7 percent) had a positive effect. However, new business declined in the important areas of the automotive industry (-14.7 percent), mechanical engineering (-5.3 percent) and the chemical industry (-3.7 percent).
According to the Ifo Institute, the lack of orders in these important areas of industry threatens to become more and more of a burden on the German economy. In January, 36.9 percent of industrial companies reported a lack of orders, as the Munich researchers announced in their monthly survey. For comparison: a year earlier the proportion was only 20.9 percent. »The lack of orders has noticeably worsened in the last year. Hardly any industry is spared from this,” said the head of the Ifo surveys, Klaus Wohlrabe. “In addition, the order backlog is melting.”
mik/Reuters