German industrial production fell more than forecast in March

According to the report from Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the production in Germany decreased significantly in March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. In March 2020, production in industry was down by 9.2% on the previous month on a price, seasonally and calendar adjusted basis. This is the largest decline since the beginning of the time series in January 1991. Economists had expected a 7.5% decrease.

In March 2020, production in industry excluding energy and construction was down by 11.6%. Within industry, the production of intermediate goods decreased by 7.4% and the production of consumer goods by 7.5%. The production of capital goods showed a decrease by 16.5%. A sharp drop was recorded by the automotive industry (-31.1%). Printing and reproduction of recorded media (-12.5%), pharmaceutical products (-11.8%) and the clothing industry (-11.5%) also saw marked declines. Outside industry, energy production was down by 6.4% in March 2020 and the production in construction increased by 1.8%.

In February 2020, the corrected figure shows the production in industry an increase of 0.3% from January 2020, thus confirming the provisional result published in the previous month.