Thanks to strong American demand
Saturday – 11 Shaaban 1444 AH – 04 March 2023 AD Issue Number [16167]
Berlin: «Middle East»
Data on Friday showed German exports grew more than expected in January, rising 2.1 percent month-on-month following declining in December, thanks to strong demand from the United States and Britain. A Archyde.com poll had expected exports to increase by 1.5 percent month on month.
And the Federal Statistical Office announced that in January 2023 Germany exported goods with a total value of 130.6 billion euros. According to the data, exports rose year-on-year by 8.6 percent, and exports increased to important markets such as the United States and China.
The data showed that exports to the United States rose by 3.1 percent on a monthly basis, while exports to Britain increased by 7.8 percent. The Federal Statistics Office said that imports fell 3.4 percent compared to last December, which contradicted analysts’ expectations of a 2 percent rise. Imports from China accounted for the majority of German imports, amounting to 12.7 billion euros.
Overall in 2022, German foreign trade achieved a record result, also due to price increases, some of which were substantial.
But at the same time, despite the significant improvement in trade in general, German car manufacturers are once once more looking pessimistically at the coming months. A survey conducted by the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich, the results of which were published on Friday, showed that the “expectations index” in the auto sector fell from 21.4 points in January to 2.8 points in February.
“Manufacturers are still processing their orders at the moment, but demand from potential buyers is slowing,” said Oliver Falk, head of the Ifo Center for Industrial Economics and New Technologies.
Suppliers evaluate their current situation better than manufacturers, but they also evaluate the outlook for the coming months as bleak, as the expectations index for suppliers decreased from -3.9 points to -9.7 points. Ifo economists survey companies in most sectors of the economy monthly for their forecasts and economic studies.
In a separate corporate context, German airline Lufthansa’s net profit rose in the fourth quarter to 307 million euros ($325 million), compared to a loss of 314 million euros during the same period a year earlier.
Lufthansa stated that the company’s earnings per share amounted to 0.26 euros, compared to a loss of 0.45 euros a year ago. The company’s adjusted earnings before interest and tax amounted to 575 million euros, compared to a loss of 42 million euros a year earlier. The company’s revenues increased during the last quarter by 52 percent to reach 8.88 billion euros, compared to 5.83 billion euros a year ago, due to the increase in demand for travel.
Lufthansa expects its profits to increase significantly during the current year, thanks to the increase in the volume of travel demand following the Corona pandemic. The largest airline in Europe said, in a statement reported by Bloomberg, that it expects to achieve a “significant improvement” in the volume of its profits, which amounted to 1.5 billion euros last year before deducting interest and taxes.
Lufthansa said summer holidays in the Mediterranean and travel routes to the North Atlantic would be particularly strong. And she added, in a statement, that “in light of the current situation in flight reservations, the company expects a continued increase in profits.”
