Germany Industrial Production Rebounds In September

(RTTNews) - Germany industrial production rebounded more than expected in September despite delivery bottlenecks, official data showed Monday.

Industrial production grew 0.6 percent month-on-month in September, reversing a revised 1.2 percent fall in August, Destatis said. This was also faster than economists' forecast of +0.2 percent.

Excluding energy and construction, industrial production was up 0.7 percent in September compared with August.

Within industry, consumer goods output grew 1.4 percent and production of capital goods gained 1.1 percent. By contrast, intermediate goods output decreased 0.1 percent.

Energy production climbed 1.7 percent, while construction dropped 0.3 percent in September.

Data showed that the production in the energy-intensive industrial branches declined 0.9 percent in September.

On a yearly basis, industrial output grew 2.6 percent, data showed.

The extreme shortage of intermediate products continued to weigh on production. Companies still have difficulties completing their orders as supply chains are interrupted, Destatis noted.

Today's industrial production data confirms that the German economy stumbled but did not fall in the third quarter, ING economist Carsten Brzeski said. But this does not suggest that the recession calls are wrong, the economist noted. In fact, the latest macro data shows that the long slide into recession continues.

Official data last week showed that the German economy had logged an unexpected quarterly growth of 0.3 percent in the third quarter.

Elsewhere, a closely watched survey on Monday showed that investor confidence in Germany improved in November as higher than usual temperature in October helped to maintain gas storage facilities in Germany full to the brim.

Germany's Sentix investor confidence index climbed to -30.0 in November from -37.4 in the previous month.

The Purchasing Managers' survey today showed that Germany's construction sector continued to contract in October as rising costs, higher interest rates and the prospects of recession dampened demand.

The S&P Global construction Purchasing Managers' Index came in at 43.8, up from September's 19-month low of 41.8. Nonetheless, a reading below 50.0 indicates contraction.