The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) has published the November 2018 figures for the goods-producing and manufacturing sectors . The figures show that the goods-producing sector fell by 1.9% over the previous month. Industrial production fell by 1.8% and construction output by 1.7%, while energy generation saw a decline of 3.1%. The sharpest drop – at -4.1% – was recorded by manufacturers of consumer goods. The production of capital goods and intermediate goods declined by 1.8% and 1.0%, respectively.

New manufacturing orders also fell by 1.0%, whereby the proportion of large-scale orders was roughly average. Domestic orders and orders from outside the eurozone increased by 2.4% and 2.3%, respectively. In contrast, following a strong rise (+7.4% in October), orders from the eurozone dropped by 11.6%. In the October/November period, new manufacturing orders were around 0.5% above the average in the third quarter, which holds out good prospects for the industrial sector.