BERLIN, Dec 6 (Reuters) - German industrial orders fell unexpectedly in October, declining by 3.7% on the previous month on a seasonally and calendar-adjusted basis, the federal statistics office said on Wednesday.
A Reuters poll of analysts had pointed to a rise of 0.2%, following a revised 0.7% increase in September.
Excluding large-scale orders, manufacturers saw a 0.7% rise in new orders in October, according to the data.
"So far, many companies have compensated for the lower order intake by working off their order backlogs," said Commerzbank economist Ralph Solveen.
"In the long term, however, they will not be able to avoid reducing their production, which suggests that the German economy will continue to shrink in the winter months," he added.
The drop in incoming orders over the August-to-October period, a less volatile comparison, was even sharper at 4.6% compared with the prior three-month period.
The statistics office publishes more economic data on its website.
Reporting by Bartosz Dabrowski and Rachel More; Editing by Andrew Heavens
Source: Reuters