German industrial production fell more than forecast in April

According to provisional data of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the production in Germany decreased significantly again in April 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, after a marked decrease had been observed already in March. In April 2020, production in industry was down by 17.9% on the previous month on a price, seasonally and calendar adjusted basis. Economists had expected a 16.8% decrease. The calendar adjusted year-on-year decrease was as much as 25.3%. This is the largest decline since the beginning of the time series in January 1991.

In April 2020, production in industry excluding energy and construction was down by 22.1%. Within industry, the production of intermediate goods decreased by 13.8% and the production of consumer goods by 8.7%. The production of capital goods showed a decrease by 35.3%. A sharp drop was recorded by the automotive industry (-74.6%). Outside industry, energy production was down by 7.2% in March 2020 and the production in construction decreased by 4.1%.

In March 2020, the corrected figure shows the production in industry a decrease of 8.9% from (primary -9.2%) from February 2020.