Arbeiter in einem Werk stehen für Auftragseingang im Verarbeitenden Gewerbe.

© Monty Rakusen/cultura/Corbis

According to the Federal Statistical Office , new manufacturing orders rose between November and December by 2.8%. This continued the upward trend of 3.6% seen in the previous month. While orders for capital goods increased by 1.8%, intermediate and consumer goods in particular benefited from increased domestic demand, with growth rates of 4.1% and 5.3% respectively. Compared with the previous year, new manufacturing orders in December showed a marked increase, rising by 5.5%.

The increase was driven by domestic demand. While domestic orders increased very strongly, up 11.7%, orders from the eurozone in particular recorded a minus of -4.2%, following a significant increase in the previous month (+10.3%).

After declining significantly in October, new orders have now been recovering for two successive months and remain well above pre-crisis levels. With the supply bottlenecks expected to ease gradually, the high index level points to dynamic economic development as soon as companies can start to tackle the high order backlog.

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[1] Press release by the Federal Statistical Office of 4 February 2022.
[2] All figures are based on provisional data and have been adjusted for price, calendar day and seasonal factors (X13 JDemetra+ procedure).