German industrial output plunges in record slump
June 8, 2020
Germany's industrial month-on-month output slumped 17.9% in April. And, year-on-year it fell 25.3%, the heaviest since 1991, say federal statisticians. That is worse than previously forecast by analysts.
Germany's industrial production in April — compared to the same month last year — dived a massive 25% in April, the sharpest fall in three decades
The 17.9% fall recorded for April by Destatis, Germany's statistics bureau, was worse than economists had suspected in light of Germany's COVID 19-lockdown.
The slump, month-on-month, was almost double the 8.9% drop recorded in March by Destatis. Germany, like other nations, went into coronavirus pandemic lockdown before gradually easing strictures from April 20 onwards.
Read more: Kissing despite COVID-19: How Germany's film industry adapts to the pandemic
Comparing April to the same month last year, Destatis put Germany's industrial output slump at 25.3%, say it was "the largest decline since the beginning of the [beginning its] time series in January 1991."
Stressing that its figure were provisional, Destatis noted an especially sharp drop in the automotive industry of minus 74.6% as supply chains were disrupted, compared to consumer goods at 8.7%.
Last week, in a bid to offset the disruption, Chancellor Angela Merkel's three-party coalition government, agreed on €130 billion ($148 billion) in stimulus measures, including subsidies for buying electric vehicles and temporary tax breaks.
Read more: Opinion — Is the end of the German car republic nigh?
Last Friday, Destatis had noted a 6.9% slowdown in company start-ups in this year's first quarter, amounting to 145,600 firms. Especially reluctant were smaller firms, whose decline was 14.6%.
Data for factory orders, also released on Friday, showed a drop in April of 25.8%, following a 15% drop in March.
Reacting to Monday's data, Germany's economy ministry declared: "the trough of the slowdown has been reached."
Over the first quarter, Germany seemingly managed better than its peers as it went into a recession, with its total economic output down 2.2%.
ipj/rc (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)