German industrial orders surge on strong domestic demand

Consumer goods have a strong domestic demand in German industrial orders, which is bigger than expected. This suggests that manufacturers in Europe’s largest economy will support a recovery in the second quarter. The orders for industrial goods, jumped on by 3% in seasonally adjusted terms. The Federal Statistics Offices published these data.

There was an upwardly revised increase of 1.4% in February and a rise of 0.8% in January. In March the domestic orders rose by 4.9%. And on the other side, foreign bookings were increased by 1.6%. Due to the unusually large number of major contracts, there is this strong increase.

The Economic Minister on seeing the industrial sectors said that the increase in the headline figure was mainly driven by strong demand for consumer goods which jumped by 8.5%. The capital goods rose by 2.5% and the bookings for intermediate goods were up by 2.8%. The ministry also said that in the sectors of mechanical engineering, manufacturing of data processing equipment and electronic and optical products only, the orders were particularly high.

The statistics officer said that the real industrial sales rose in March by 2% on the month in calendar-adjusted terms. This is indicated by the sign that manufacturers are partly overcoming supply bottlenecks with semiconductors and other industrial components.