By Nicholas Winning
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
LONDON (Dow Jones)--Factory orders across the euro zone rose unexpectedly in December, as strong demand in France and Italy helped outweigh a drop in Germany, official data showed Wednesday.
New industrial orders in the 16 countries that made up the currency area at the time rose 2.1% from November and were 18.5% stronger than in December 2009, the European Union's Eurostat agency said. Estonia became the 17th member of the euro zone at the start of this year.
Economists were expecting orders to drop 1.3% on the month and rise 15.7% on the year, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey last week. In November, orders rose an upwardly revised 2.2% on the month and 20.0% on the year, Eurostat said.
Orders rose 9.1% on the month in Italy and 7.5% in France, the euro zone's third and second-largest economies respectively. That helped offset a 2.9% drop in orders in Germany, Europe's biggest economy.
Eurostat website: www.ec.europa.eu/eurostat
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento