Industrial orders in the crisis-plagued eurozone regained some ground in October after plunging the month before, data released on Thursday showed, according to dpa. But the recovery fell short of expectations amid continuing signs of an economic slowdown. Factory orders in the common currency area rose by 1.8 per cent as compared to September, the European Union's statistics agency Eurostat reported. Analysts had forecast a 2.5-per-cent increase. Eurostat also disclosed that the September tumble in factory orders in the 17-member eurozone had been worse than first thought, revising the drop from 6.4 per cent to 7.8 per cent. Among the entire 27 members of the EU, orders rose by 0.5 per cent in October after falling by 2.1 per cent the month before. Germany, Britain and Estonia saw the most significant rises in orders, while Denmark, Latvia and Lithuania had the biggest falls. Excluding more volatile items such as ships, railway and aerospace equipment, October industrial orders dropped by 0.5 per cent in the eurozone and by 0.9 per cent in the EU. Industrial prices, meanwhile, saw a rise of 0.2 per cent in the currency area and 0.3 per cent in the wider EU from October to November, according to a separate set of data released by Eurostat. Analysts had forecast a 0.1 per cent increase for the eurozone. The energy sector drove the rise, with prices there rising by 0.9 per cent from October and by 12.3 per cent from the same time last year in the eurozone. In the entire EU, energy prices were up by 1 per cent month-on-month and 13.8 per cent year-on-year.
