Thanks to the strong performance of automobile sales, Germany’s industrial output rose 3.2% month-on-month in October, beating market expectations for a 1.6% growth, the fastest since June. Meanwhile, the growth rate of industrial output in September was also revised up to 2.3% from 1.6%. In October, auto industry output surged by 9.9% month-on-month, but it was still 6% lower than in February 2020. At that time, in order to help companies and consumers ride out the public health crisis, the German government introduced incentives for the purchase of electric and hybrid vehicles. Other sectors that saw a month-on-month growth also included a 4.3% increase in the output of intermediate products, a 5.2% increase in the output of capital goods, a 4.0% increase in energy products and a 1.6% increase in construction, but the output of consumer goods fell 2.4%. "Thanks to the strong performance of the manufacturing industry, the decline in Germany’s GDP in the fourth quarter may not have been as large as that of nearby European countries." said Thomas Gitzel, economist at VP Bank. However, in an effort to contain the spread of the virus, Germany re-imposed the lockdown in November, shutting down most of the service sector. Looking further ahead, the IFO institute said, production expectations in the industrial sector had deteriorated in the coming months, with consumer-oriented industries in particular becoming more pessimistic about their prospects.