New orders for industry in the 12-nation eurozone fell by 5.8% in January from December owing to declines in the transportation and electronics sectors, the EU statistics office Eurostat reported March 23. The drop in orders came after two months of gains in the eurozone with orders up 8.2% in December and 1.7% in November.
The transportation sector saw a decline of 19.6% in orders in January from December, and electronic equipment manufacturing declined 1.7%. From a year earlier, industrial orders in the eurozone rose 8.2% in January.
For the entire European Union of 25 member states, industrial orders fell 6.2% in January from December, and were up 7.4%.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005
