Data provided by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) showed that in January, real retail sales (price-adjusted) fell by 0.3% after falling by 5.3% in December. Economists had expected sales growth of 2%. In annual terms, the rate of sales decline accelerated to 6.9% from 6.4% in December. Consensus estimates suggested a fall of 6.1% per annum. Destatis said that retail turnover decreased by 0.6% compared with January 2020, the corresponding month before the Covid-19 pandemic.
A separate report from Destatis showed that industrial production jumped by 3.5% in January, offsetting a 2.4% decline in December (revised from -3.1%), and exceeding economists' forecasts (+1.4%). However, compared with January 2022, calendar adjusted production was 1.6% lower.
Excluding energy and construction, industrial production increased by 1.9% compared to December and decreased by 0.9% year-on-year.
The data showed that a significant increase in production was recorded in the electronic equipment sector (+7.1% compared to December), as well as in the chemicals and chemical products sector (+9.8%). On the other hand, the production of cars, trailers and semi-trailers fell by 5.2%, while the production of basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations decreased by 12.9%.
Meanwhile, energy production increased by 0.4% compared to December, and construction production increased by 12.6%. Production in energy-intensive industries increased by 6.8% compared to December, but fell by 13.2% per annum.