Germany Factory Orders

New orders for German manufactured goods unexpectedly increased 3.4 percent month-over-month in July 2021, following an upwardly revised 4.6 percent rise in June and easily beating market forecasts of a 1.0 percent fall. New orders reached the highest level since the beginning of the time series in 1991, mainly due to robust foreign demand (8.0 percent) as demand from countries outside the Eurozone jumped 15.7 percent due to many major orders especially from the shipbuilding sector. Meanwhile, orders from the bloc were down 4.1% and domestic orders fell by 2.5 percent. By category, new orders increased for capital goods (5.4 percent) and consumer goods (7.5 percent), but declined for intermediate goods (-0.5 percent). Compared with February 2020, which was the month before restrictions were imposed due to the pandemic in Germany, new orders were 15.7 percent higher.