The order stock of the processing industry in Germany stagnated. It did not change in January compared to the previous month and the same month of the previous year, according to the Federal Statistical Office on Wednesday.
Within the processing industry, there were different developments in January compared to December. While the declines in the order stock in the automotive industry (seasonally and calendar-adjusted -0.7 percent to the previous month) and in the machine building sector (-0.8 percent) negatively affected the overall result, the increases in the automotive industry (+1.0 percent) and in the production of electrical equipment (+1.4 percent) had a positive impact.
Both the open orders from domestic and foreign countries remained unchanged in the first month of the year compared to the previous month.
The order stock of intermediate goods was 0.9 percent higher. The order stock of manufacturers of capital goods decreased by 0.1 percent and that of consumer goods by 0.9 percent.
At the beginning of the year, the lead time of the order stock increased by 0.1 month to 7.6 months (December: 7.5 months). The lead time increased to 10.3 months for manufacturers of capital goods (previous month: 10.1 months), to 4.3 months for manufacturers of intermediate goods (December: 4.2 months) and remained unchanged at 3.6 months for manufacturers of consumer goods.