BERLIN, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- Germany's industrial manufacturing sector has witnessed a sharp decline in the number of new orders in June, preliminary figures published on Monday by the Federal Statistical Office show.
According to the Wiesbaden-based government agency, price- and seasonally-adjusted orders recorded by industrial firms in June were down by 4.0 percent compared to the previous month of May. The figure marked the biggest monthly drop in orders measured in over a year.
Domestic and international orders both fell by 2.8 percent and 4.7 percent respectively. Broken down by foreign regions, the slump in international demand for German manufacturers was less pronounced in the neighboring Eurozone (minus 2.7 percent) than in the rest of the world (minus 5.9 percent).
The producers of intermediary goods were the best performing industrial sector for new orders (minus 2.3 percent), ahead of consumer goods producers (minus 4.5 percent) and capital goods producers (minus 4.7 percent). During the same period, price-adjusted gross revenue fell by 1.0 percent across all sub-categories of the German manufacturing sector.
Commenting on the official figures on Monday, the German ministry for the economy partially attributed the weak performance of the important industrial manufacturing sector to "insecurities stemming from trade policy."
In spite of the protectionist policies of U.S. President Donald Trump, however, the ministry highlighted that overall business sentiment in the sector remained "decidedly positive."
Speaking to Xinhua on Monday, Thiess Petersen, senior economics expert at the Bertelsmann Foundation, noted that Germany had already experienced several years of continued growth in industrial orders.
"At the high current level (of new orders) it is impossible to achieve continuously achieve steep monthly increases", Petersen explained. "There will only be a real reason for concern if June's falling orders turn out to be part of a wider trend during the coming months", he added.
