BERLIN, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- New orders in Germany's manufacturing industry in August decreased by 0.6 percent compared to the previous month, the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Monday.
Compared to August last year, industrial orders in Germany even declined by 6.7 percent, nurturing worries that Europe's largest economy is moving towards recession.
"The industrial economy remains subdued for the moment," announced the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and noted that the "weakness in demand" was continuing.
Domestic orders declined strongly by 2.6 percent compared to the previous month, while foreign orders still showed a slight plus of 0.9 percent, Destatis noted.
According to the Destatis, incoming orders from the euro zone increased by 1.5 percent and rose by 0.4 percent for the rest of the world.
After an initial decline of 2.7 percent had been reported for July, Destatis revised the decline in orders upwards to only 2.1 percent.
According to Destatis, real turnover in the manufacturing industry in August was 1.3 percent higher than in the previous month.
Last week, Germany's five leading economic research institutes had "significantly" lowered their economic forecasts. For this year, the institutes expect an increase in gross domestic product of only 0.5 percent, 0.3 percentage points less than in the spring forecast.
