Manufacturing output falls in the UK, orders rise in Germany

The improvement in global manufacturing recently failed to translate into higher manufacturing output in the UK in May. Reuters reports:

The Office for National Statistics said factory output fell by 0.5 percent in May, confounding forecasts for a 0.2 percent rise. And an initially reported 0.2 percent rise in April was revised away to nothing.

The wider industrial output measure, which includes energy production and accounts for almost a fifth of economic output, fell 0.6 percent on the month after a downwardly revised 0.2 percent gain in April.

However, data from Germany indicate that the outlook for manufacturing remains positive. From Bloomberg:

German manufacturing orders jumped the most in almost two years in May, adding to signs that the deepest economic slump since World War II is abating.

Orders, adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, rose 4.4 percent from April, the Economy Ministry in Berlin said today. That’s the biggest gain since June 2007 and nine times the 0.5 percent increase forecast by economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Orders were still 29.4 percent lower than a year earlier.