Germany's economic rebound runs into river crisis
Aug 08, 2026
Berlin [Germany], August 8: Industrial orders in Germany came in above expectations in June, the country's statistics office said Thursday, but analysts warned that rivers running dry and the Mideast war could spell trouble. Industrial orders, a measure of future business activity, rose 3.1 percent in June on the previous month, Destatis said, well above the one percent increase expected in an analyst poll by financial platform FactSet. "The slight upturn in new orders is continuing," LBBW bank analyst Jens-Oliver Niklasch said. "All-in-all it seems as if the economy is doing somewhat better than was recently expected." A run of brighter-than-expected data has boosted hopes that Europe's biggest economy is defying the worst as the Mideast war has led to higher energy prices. Industrial production in May ticked up slightly more than expected, and business sentiment in July rose for the third month in a row according to a survey by the Ifo institute. But Germany's economy, suffering from US tariffs and intense Chinese competition for key exports from cars to chemicals, remains fragile, posting virtually no growth since the end of the Covid pandemic in 2022.
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