Germany: Industrial output notches quickest growth since February 2023 in January
Industrial output rose 1.0% in month-on-month terms in January, which contrasted December’s 2.0% decrease. The result marked the best reading since February 2023. The turnaround came on the back of recoveries in manufacturing output plus mining and quarrying production. Lastly, construction sector output rose at a stronger rate, while energy output dipped at a steeper pace than in December.
On an annual basis, industrial production nosedived 5.5% in January (December: -3.5% yoy), the worst result since September 2020. Moreover, the trend pointed down, with the annual average variation of industrial production coming in at minus 1.9% in January, down from December’s minus 1.6%.
Despite the uptick, Germany’s industrial production remained 13.4% below its November 2017 peak in January. Since then, the country has gradually deindustrialized as trade competition has intensified with China, the U.S. has drifted away from Europe and has increasingly vied for climate investment, and cheap Russian gas has disappeared as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war.
In 2024, industrial production is expected to shrink further as these headwinds persist, before weakly recovering from 2025 onward. Even by the end of our forecast horizon in 2028, German industrial production is expected to remain roughly 4% below its 2017 peak.
On the data, ING’s Carsten Brzeski said:
“This week’s data illustrate the bottoming out of German industry but cannot hide the structural weakness. What we are currently seeing looks like a very gradual, cyclical bottoming out. In fact, industrial sentiment continued to weaken in February as the order book assessment worsened and production expectations only marginally improved, coming from very low levels.”