German engineering orders continue downward trend in October, says VDMA

BERLIN (Reuters) - German plant and equipment makers' orders resumed their downward trend in October, the VDMA association said on Monday, as customers remain very reluctant to make new investments.

Orders overall were down 9% year on year in October in real terms, the second month in a row of decreases after a one-off rise in August broke a more than year-long string of falls.

A slight rise in domestic orders, up 3%, was offset by a 14% tumble in foreign ones, but VDMA economic expert Ralph Wiechers said that both results should not be overestimated.

"The domestic increase is based on an extremely weak comparative basis in the previous year," Wiechers said.

"The sharp drop in foreign business, on the other hand, can be explained by large-scale plant business a year ago," he said.

In the less-volatile three-month period from August to October, orders were down 3% overall, with a 7% fall in domestic orders and a 1% fall in foreign ones.

For the first 10 months of the year, orders are now down 8% overall, according to the VDMA.

OCTOBER CHANGE

overall -9% y/y

of which German +3% y/y

foreign -14% y/y

AUG TO OCT -3% y/y

of which German -7% y/y

foreign -1% y/y

(Reporting by Miranda Murray, Editing by Friederike Heine)

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