Orders received by the German mechanical engineering sector were 32 per cent higher then the previous year’s level in October, according to current figures from the Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbauer (VDMA, or German Engineering Federation). Domestic business for mechanical engineering companies grew by 25 per cent on the previous year and orders from abroad went up by us much as 35 per cent.

However, at the same time VDMA Head Economist Ralph Wiechers warned against reading too much into the figures and pointed to the poor figures from the crisis year 2009 on which the comparison is based. Thus, despite high growth figures, in many sub-sectors such as printing equipment, agricultural machinery and materials handling, orders in hand are still below pre-crisis levels. The VDMA also sees state support programmes that have promoted investment as one reason for the dynamic development, especially in the 2nd quarter.

Orders received by manufacturing industry in the 16 euro countries fell faster than expected by experts in September. As reported by the EU statistics authority Eurostat, the decline was 3.8 per cent compared with August. Economists had expected a deterioration of merely 3 per cent. In Germany orders received weakened by 3.5 per cent. In comparison with September in the crisis year 2009 there has been a plus of 13.5 per cent in orders received in the eurozone. This is also below forecasts, which had assumed a rise of 15 per cent.

In the whole EU, with its 27 member states, orders received dropped by 2.5 per cent month on month in September. Year on year they were 13.4 per cent higher.