Germany: orders are at a standstill, but the trade surplus is growing
Germany tries to survive industrially by creating ever-increasing trade surpluses and without incentives for internal consumption. The path of austerity that leads nowhere.
Let's start with the trade surplus: Germany's trade surplus expanded to 20.4 billion euros in November 2023, exceeding market expectations of 17.9 billion euros and rising from 17.7 billion euros slightly revised from the previous month . It was the largest trade surplus since January 2021, as exports grew more than imports.
Exports rose 3.7% to a five-month high of 131.2 billion euros, beating forecasts for a 0.3% increase. Exports to the EU increased by 5.4%, while those to third countries increased by 1.8%, in particular to China (3.1%), the United Kingdom (15.2%) and Russia (12.8%). In contrast, exports from the United States fell by 1.4%.
Meanwhile, purchases rose for the first time in six months by 1.9%, reaching a three-month high of 110.8 billion euros, above expectations of a 0.2% increase. Imports from the EU increased by 2.8%, while those from non-EU countries increased by 0.8%, particularly from the United States (3.0%), China (3.1%) and the United Kingdom (6.3%). However, imports from Russia dropped by 14.0%, obviously due to economic sanctions.
However, all this did not help to revive German industry : orders to industries in Germany increased by 0.3% month on month in November 2023, reversing the previous month's revised 3.8% decline, but resulting lower than market forecasts which predicted growth of 1.0%.
Incoming orders increased for both capital goods (0.8%) and consumer goods (1.1%) but decreased for intermediate goods (-0.4%). Domestic orders grew by 1.4%. In contrast, overseas orders fell 0.4%, with orders from the Eurozone falling 1.9% while those from outside the Eurozone gained 0.6%.
New orders, excluding large-scale orders, fell 0.6% in November. In the less volatile three-month comparison, incoming orders from September to November 2023 were 4.5% lower than in the previous three months.
Here is the relevant graph:
It seems clear that managing to develop exports is not the solution to the crisis in German industry. Without internal investments, without an increase in national consumption, the industry still gets by and does not develop. Without considering that the investments would be useful for renewing infrastructure networks that are now obsolete and are literally collapsing. But it's better not to make a debt to leave to your children who, however, won't even have bridges.
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The article Germany: orders are at a standstill, but the trade surplus is growing comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/germania-gli-ordini-sono-fermi-ma-cresce-il-surplus-commerciale/ on Mon, 08 Jan 2024 09:00:45 +0000.