BERLIN, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Germany's industrial production fell 1.2 percent year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2025, official data showed Friday, putting Europe's largest economy on track for a fourth consecutive annual decline in industrial output.
The weakness was driven largely by the automotive sector, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said. German industrial production declined in both 2023 and 2024, saw a modest rebound in the first half of 2025, but weakened again in the second half as car output fell, it noted.
From January to November, production in the automotive sector dropped 2.4 percent from a year earlier, while output in machinery and equipment manufacturing fell 2.3 percent, the data showed.
Overall industrial production in 2025 remained around 14 percent below its 2018 level, with car output down by more than 20 percent, said Nils Jannsen, head of German economic forecast at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. He added that industrial output had risen only once in the past seven years, in 2021.
"The structural crisis continues to have the industry firmly in its grip," Jannsen said.
Still, analysts see tentative signs of a turnaround toward the end of 2025. Destatis data showed industrial output rose 0.8 percent month-on-month in November, marking the third consecutive monthly increase. Separate data released on Thursday showed industrial orders also rose for a third straight month in November.
Jens-Oliver Niklasch, senior economist at the Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg (LBBW), cautioned that after a prolonged economic downturn, any improvement in sentiment is likely to be gradual, adding weak external demand and persistent global uncertainty in 2026 continue to weigh on Germany's export-driven industry.
Echoing similar concerns, Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy said on Friday that while industrial output has shown an upward trend toward the end of 2025, a broader recovery remains constrained by weak foreign demand amid ongoing geopolitical and trade policy uncertainty. ■
