from a German Correspondent Following a steady shrinking process, the amount of orders booked by West German industry in February was 8.1% lower than that of February, 1966 Manufacturers of capital goods, with a contraction of 13.1% were particularly hard hit and would have been even worse off but for a 6% increase of their export orders Home orders for capital goods were down by 20.3% showing that in February the reflationary efforts of the Government and the ‘Bundesbank had had next to no Visible effect. Government deficit spending had (and for that matter has) not really got under way, so that it could not have had more than a psychological effect. But the Discount rate had been cut by half a percentage on January 6 and again on February 17. The Economics Ministry still lacks most of the economic indicators for March so that it has not yet been in a position to make up its mind what the situation requires, The March unemployment figures, which are available, are certainly not encouraging, since the improvement they showed over February was seasonal rather than cyclical,
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