German Industrial Output Falls by 2.4%

In May, German industrial production slumped by 2.4% compared to the same month a year earlier, owing in large part to long weekends, figures released July 7 by the economy ministry showed.

The result for Europe's largest economy nonetheless surprised anyalsts polled by Dow Jones Newswires who had forecast an increase of 0.5%.

The ministry also revised its figure for April, which showed that industrial output had decreased by 0.25 that month, better than the initial estimate of a 0.5% drop.

On July 4 however, provisional data indicated that industrial orders had fallen by 0.9% in May, making the sixth drop in a row and suggesting that output would decrease in turn in the months to come.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2008