Germany's factory orders rose less than forecast in May

According to provisional results of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), real (price adjusted) new orders increased by a seasonally and calendar adjusted 10.4% in May 2020 compared with April 2020. Economists had expected a 15.0% increase. Compared with May 2019, the decrease in calendar adjusted new orders amounted to 29.3%. Excluding major orders, real new orders in manufacturing seasonally and calendar adjusted were 8.9% higher than in the previous month.

Compared with February 2020, the month before restrictions were imposed due to the corona pandemic in Germany, new orders in May 2020 were 30.8% lower in seasonally and calendar adjusted terms.

Domestic orders increased by 12.3% and foreign orders rose by 8.8% in May 2020 on the previous month. New orders from the euro area went up 20.9%, and new orders from other countries increased by 2.0% compared with April 2020.

In May 2020 the manufacturers of intermediate goods saw new orders increase by 0.4% compared with April 2020. The manufacturers of capital goods saw an increase of 20.3% on the previous month. Regarding consumer goods, new orders rose 4.7%.

New orders in the automotive industry increased again markedly in May 2020, after very low levels in April 2020. However, new orders were still more than 47% lower than in February 2020.

For April 2020, revision of the preliminary outcome resulted in a decrease of 26.2% compared with March 2020 (provisional: -25.8%).