Germany's factory orders fell sharply in May

According to provisional results of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), real (price adjusted) new orders decreased by a seasonally and calendar adjusted 3.7% in May 2021 compared with April 2021. Economists had expected a 1.0% increase. Excluding major orders, real new orders in manufacturing were 3.7% lower than in the previous month.

Compared with February 2020, which was the month before restrictions were imposed due to the corona pandemic in Germany, new orders in May 2021 were 6.2% higher in seasonally and calendar adjusted terms. Compared with May 2020, a month very strongly affected by the pandemic, the increase in calendar adjusted new orders amounted to +54.3%.

Domestic orders increased by 0.9% and foreign orders went down by 6.7% in May 2021 on the previous month. New orders from the euro area decreased 2.3%, and new orders from other countries fell by 9.3% compared with April 2021 following increases recorded in the last few months.

In May 2021, the manufacturers of intermediate goods saw new orders decrease by 3.6% compared with April 2021. The manufacturers of capital goods saw a decrease of 4.6% on the previous month. Regarding consumer goods, new orders rose by 3.9%.

For April 2021, the revision of the preliminary outcome resulted in an increase of 1.2% compared with March 2021 (provisional: -0.2).