German industrial orders fall for fourth month in a row 

German industrial orders took a surprise fall in April, the Federal Statistics Office in the city of Wiesbaden said on Thursday.

The number of new orders fell by 2.5 per cent compared to March, the office said. The news follows on from disappointing figures for the entire first quarter of the year, it added.

The statistics office also revised the drop in orders between February and March up from 0.9 to 1.1 per cent. Industrial orders in Europe’s largest economy have fallen each month since the start of the year.

Analysts were surprised by the April figures as they had expected orders to bounce back by as much as 0.8 per cent. They had predicted the falls in the months of the first quarter.

Demand from the domestic market fell 4.8 per cent compared with March, while foreign orders dropped by 0.8 per cent month on month.

Orders from within the European Union dropped over the same period by 9.9 per cent, while they rose 5.4 per cent from other countries, the statistics office said.

Source: dpa