German industrial orders decline sharply in January

BERLIN, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The number of new orders for the German industrial sector declined by 2.6 percent in January, marking the strongest month-on-month decline since June 2018, preliminary figures published by the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Friday show.

Domestic orders for the German industrial sector fell by 1.2 percent while international orders declined by 3.6 percent.

orders figures for December, however, were revised upwards from minus 1.6 percent to plus 0.9 percent because large industrials orders had not been included to the preliminary numbers.

German manufacturers of capital goods, such as large machines and production facilities, recorded the sharpest sector decline in new orders with a minus of 3.6 percent.

Also on Friday, the association of the German Mechanical Engineering Industry (VDMA) reported a particular sharp drop of 11 percent in international orders for the mechanical engineering sector. orders from other European countries fell especially strongly by 22 percent, according to the German engineering association.

The German mechanical engineering sector would feel "the economic downturn", stressed Olaf Wortmann, economic expert at VDMA.

In January, the German government lowered its official national gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast to one percent, down from an earlier forecast of 1.8 percent.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) predicts Europe's largest economy to grow by 0.7 percent due to a weaker global economy, which would affect Germany as an export country in particular. The OECD had previously forecast a growth of 1.6 percent for the German economy.