Incoming orders to German industry rose for the second month in a row in December, official figures published Friday showed, after the economy was buffeted by supply bottlenecks in 2021.
The indicator, which gives a foretaste of industrial production, climbed by 2.8 per cent in December over the previous month, having risen by 3.6 per cent in November, according to revised figures from the federal statistics agency Destatis.
Over the whole of 2021, orders were 17.8 per cent higher than in 2020, when the economy was laid low by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
The 2021 figure was also 9.3 per cent higher than the pre-crisis year 2019, but the strong bounceback in demand has so far been trailed by production as bottlenecks have hampered industry.
Domestic orders saw a particularly strong rise in December on the previous month, up 11.7 per cent, while orders from outside Germany fell by three per cent.
Demand from inside the eurozone fell further, with orders down by 4.2 per cent, while other countries only say their orders decrease by 2.3 per cent.
"Businesses are very clearly geared up for a recovery and are in the starting blocks for an upswing," said Jens-Oliver Niklasch, senior economist at the LBBW bank.
Key to a strong recovery would be "the end of corona restrictions and certainty in supply chains", Niklasch said.
