Industrial production exceeds expectations in Germany

The German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) has announced provisional data on industrial production for February.

As a result, seasonally adjusted and calendar industrial production rose 2 percent in February compared with the previous month, beating economists’ forecasts.

The expectation was that industrial production would increase by 0.1 percent.

Industrial production increased 0.6 percent compared to February 2022, despite the expectation of a 2 percent decline.

DECREASED ENERGY PRODUCTION

The increase in industrial production for January, which was announced at 3.5 percent, was also revised to 3.7 percent. Industrial production had fallen 2.4 percent in December 2022.

The data revealed that industrial production, excluding power and construction, rose 2.4 percent in February from the previous month.

In said period, the production of capital goods and intermediate goods increased 3.4 percent and industrial production 1.8 percent.

In February there was an increase of 1.4 percent in the production of consumer goods and 1.5 percent in construction compared to the previous month. Power production, on the other hand, declined 1.1 percent.

AUTOMOTIVE PRODUCTION INCREASES 7.6 PERCENT

In the Destatis statement, it was noted that the significant increase in the automotive sector in February made a large contribution to overall industrial production, saying: “The largest industrial sector (automotive) in Germany increased its production by 7.6 percent.” percent compared to Jan. 2023, corrected for seasonal and calendar effects.”

On the other hand, factory orders in Germany rose 4.8 percent in February on large orders for ships, rail and military vehicles for the third straight month.

In the last quarter of 2022, the German economy contracted by 0.4 percent compared to the previous quarter due to the energy crisis and record inflation.

Although the bottlenecks that arose during the Covid-19 epidemic have eased, the country’s economy is negatively affected by the stagnation of demand due to the rise in interest rates, the decrease in confidence in the economy and the decrease in consumer purchasing power. in an environment of unusually high inflation.

EXPECTED TO CONTINUE AT GSHY

Economists say Europe’s largest economy is technically in recession, while GDP is expected to continue to fall in the first quarter of this year.

The technical recession is expressed as “two quarters of a GDP contraction”.

Germany entered a recession for the first time since 2009 in 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 outbreak after 10 years of good economic growth.

The German government expects 0.2 percent growth in the economy this year. (AA)