Euro area industrial orders up in June

BRUSSELS - Industrial orders in the eurozone were up by 3.1 percent in June compared with the previous month, in further signs that Europe is steadily crawling its way out of the worst of the economic crisis.

Nevertheless, hopes resulting from the figures, issued on Monday (24 August) by Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office, must be tempered by other data issued by the bureau. For the EU as a whole, including countries beyond those member states using the euro, new industrial orders fell by 0.4 percent for the same month after a minor rise of 0.5 percent in May.

Any optimism must also be be modulated by a comparison with the same period in 2008, which shows a drop of 25 percent in the euro area and 24 percent for the EU as a whole.

Excluding orders from the shipping, railway and aerospace sectors, which tend to be more volatile, still show a drop of 26.7 percent in the eurozone and 25.9 percent in the EU27.

The same exclusion for the month of June produces figures showing growth of 1.9 percent for the euro area and 1.1 percent in the entire EU.

New orders for capital goods grew by 5.6 percent in the euro area and by 0.9 percet in the EU27.

Non-durable consumer goods increased by 3.1 percent and 1.6 percent respectively.

Intermediate goods declined by 0.9 percent in the euro area and by 0.7 percent in the EU27.

Durable consumer goods fell by 3.5 percent and 3.6 percent respectively.

Among the members of the bloc for which data are available, total manufacturing working orders rose in eleven, fell in eight and remained stable in Portugal.

The highest increases were registered in Ireland (+14.8%), Bulgaria (+13.8%) and Hungary (+13.1%), and the largest decreases in Denmark (-29.9%), Poland (-6.7%) and Lithuania (-4.9%).