New orders in Germany's manufacturing industry dropped by 15.6 percent in March compared to the previous month "because of the coronavirus pandemic," the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Wednesday.

Destatis noted that this was the largest decline since the beginning of the time series in January 1991.

"Shutdown measures worldwide had a massive impact on economic activity from mid-March onwards," Simon Junker, deputy head of the economic policy department of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), told Xinhua on Wednesday.

The drop of incoming orders and sales in Germany's manufacturing industry had been expected, added Junker, "even roughly on this scale."

According to the provisional data by Destatis, domestic orders decreased by 14.8 percent, while international orders fell by 16.1 percent month-on-month. New orders from the euro area even decreased by 17.9 percent.

Manufacturers of intermediate goods in Germany only saw new orders decrease by 7.5 percent compared to the previous month, according to Destatis. But manufacturers of capital goods in Germany recorded a strong decrease of 22.6 percent.

Germany's Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) also noted that the "global economic shock" caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the measures taken to contain it had caused industrial order intake in Germany to fall "drastically."

Source: Xinhua