Germany's factory orders posted a faster than expected growth in February driven by higher demand for motor vehicles and automobile engines, data revealed Wednesday.
Factory orders grew 4.8 percent on a monthly basis, much faster than the 0.5 percent revised rise in January, Destatis reported. The rate also exceeded economists' forecast of 0.3 percent.
Excluding large-scale orders, manufacturing orders posted an increase of 1.2 percent. Data showed that domestic orders increased 5.6 percent on month and foreign orders advanced 4.2 percent. Orders in the sector of manufacture of motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines grew 3.7 percent and demand in mechanical engineering moved up 2.8 percent.
Year-on-year, factory orders decreased 5.7 percent in February.
Real turnover in manufacturing grew 1.5 percent from the prior month, when it was down by revised 0.6 percent.
