German industrial orders fall

FRANKFURT: German industrial orders fell sharply in May, hit by weak demand from abroad as the pandemic continued to pummel Europe’s top economy, official data showed on Tuesday.

Orders were down by 3.7 percent, according to the federal statistics office Destatis, dashing the hopes of analysts polled by Factset who had pencilled in a rise of 0.8 percent compared to April.

However, a year-on-year comparison showed a whopping 54.3 percent increase compared to May 2020, when the economy came to a screeching halt during the first wave of the global pandemic.

International orders in May sank particularly sharply, by 2.3 percent from eurozone countries and 9.3 percent from the rest of the world according to month-on-month data.