German manufacturing orders unexpectedly fell in January, easing after a big rise in the fourth quarter of last year that economists said still left businesses with plenty of work in hand. Incoming orders fell in January by 1.5 percent on the month in seasonally adjusted terms, the Economy Ministry said on Thursday.
A Reuters poll of economists last week had pointed to a rise of 0.2 percent on the month. "This is a correction to the massive increase in orders in the fourth quarter," said Alexander Koch, economist at UniCredit in Munich.
"Overall the supply of new orders is very solid despite weak dynamics. The backlog of orders is still at a very high level and that will support production in coming months. The order books are so full that companies will have enough to do." Industrial group Siemens said on Wednesday slower economic growth had not impacted its order books yet and that it still expected a strong book-to-bill ratio for the time being.
The German orders figure for December was revised up to a fall of -1.1 percent from -1.7 percent previously reported. In January, domestic orders fell by 1.9 percent compared with December and foreign orders fell by 1.3 percent. Orders rose by some 5 percent in the October-December period compared with the previous quarter. This was the biggest rise since the second quarter of 2000, Bundesbank data showed.