Eurozone's industrial new orders rebound in December 2011

BRUSSLES, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- The eurozone's industrial new orders rose 1.9 percent month on month in December last year after a decline of 1.1 percent in the previous month, the statistics office of the European Union (EU) said Wednesday.

The rebound mainly stemmed from a 4.2-percent increase in new orders for capital goods, and a 1.5-percent growth in new orders for intermediate goods, Eurostat said in a statement on its website.

The data also showed that new orders for non-durable consumer slightly increased by 0.1 percent, and those for durable consumers goods fell by 2.7 percent.

Italy, eurozone's third largest economy which has been dragged into recession by the debt crisis, saw its industrial new orders in December last year increase "unexpectedly" by 8 percent from the previous month, while France and Spain experienced a 0.7-percent and a 1.2-percent decline respectively, Eurotstat said.

Industrial new orders were up 2.3 percent in December last year in the eurozone's largest economy Germany.

On an annual basis, eurozone's industrial new orders declined by 1.7 percent in December last year. For the wider 27-nation EU, the orders increased by 1.3 percent month on month and decreased 1.7 percent compared with December in 2010.