Manufacturing demand falls off

IRELAND suffered the greatest fall in new manufacturing orders of any EU country in November with the figures showing a drop of 26.5% compared with the same month the previous year.

Comparing the monthly figures, the country showed the second largest decrease, with orders down 4.4% compared to October.

Orders rose in 13 countries and fell in eight. For the euro area generally new industrial orders rose by 1.6% in November compared with the previous month, in stark contrast to October’s 1.9% drop.

The annual change showed an increases of 2.6% in the euro area and 4.8% for the EU27.

The highest monthly increases were for Estonia (7.4%) and notably Greece (7.3%), while the highest annual increase was in Slovenia (10.6%), the Czech Republic (7.9%) and Finland (6.9%).

Revised figures showed the current account deficit of €27.7 billion for the third quarter of last year was well down on the €49 billion deficit in the second quarter of 2009.

Eurostat’s provisional figures showed a €16.7 billion surplus on trade in services which was down slightly on the previous three months.

The EU27’s direct investments abroad at €56.2bn was down on the €75.7 bn for the same quarter of 2008, while FDI in the EU27 was €26.9bn, less than half the €64.5bn recorded in the third quarter of 2008.