Industrial production in Germany fell by 0.7% in March compared to the previous month, according to the country’s statistics office. Analysts had expected industrial production to rise by 0.5% on average, according to Trading Economics.
According to revised data, the figure fell by 0.5% in February, whereas a 0.3% decline had previously been reported.
Output of consumer goods fell by 1.9% in March, while output of capital goods declined by 1.6%. Meanwhile, production of intermediate goods rose by 0.8%.
Production in the machinery sector decreased by 2.7%, and the energy sector saw a 4% decline. Meanwhile, construction output increased by 1.9%, and automotive production also rose by 1.9%.
On an annual basis, industrial production in Germany fell by 2.8% in March, following a 0.2% decline the previous month.
Industrial producer prices in Ukraine rose by 2.3% in March compared to the previous month of 2026, following a 22.3% increase in February and a 3.5% increase in January, according to the State Statistics Service (SSS).
“In March, the rise in prices was primarily driven by a 4.8% increase in costs in the mining and quarrying sector,” the State Statistics Service noted.
According to the agency’s data, on an annualized basis (compared to March 2025), industrial price growth accelerated to 36.6% by the end of March 2026, up from 34.5% in February and 11.2% in January.
As reported, industrial prices rose by 8.2% in 2025.
ECONOMY, INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS, INDUSTRY, State Statistics Service
171 enterprises and communities from 14 regions of Ukraine have used the simplified procedure for changing the designated use of agricultural land to industrial and energy land for the construction of new enterprises and power plants. This was announced at the Kyiv International Economic Forum by Dmytro Kysylevskyi, Deputy Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Development. He is the author of the law that reduced the duration of changing the designated land use from 1–3 years to 1.5 months.
Decisions to change the designated purpose of land under the simplified procedure have been adopted for the construction of production and warehouse facilities (75 plots), production of energy from renewable sources (42 plots), industrial production and industrial parks (26 plots), and other facilities (28 plots). The highest number of positive decisions was adopted in Kyiv, Zakarpattia, Rivne, Zhytomyr and Kirovohrad regions. No positive decision has yet been adopted in Sumy, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Luhansk, Odesa, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, and Cherkasy regions.
In total, under the simplified procedure, the designated use of land has been changed from agricultural to industrial and energy use for plots with a combined area of 1,050 hectares. Of these:
434 ha – production of energy from renewable sources
385 ha – production and warehouse facilities
121 ha – industrial production and industrial parks
110 ha – other.
“Land purchase and the subsequent change of its designated use for a long time was one of the most time-consuming and corruption-prone stages of making investments in industry and energy. On average, this simple procedure in essence used to take 2–3 years of bureaucracy, corruption, and humiliation of entrepreneurs. Now the situation has changed. The simplified procedure takes 1.5–2 months, and it allows saving time and money when launching new production. But most importantly, investors who dare to build industrial or energy facilities during the war feel a better attitude from the state,” noted Dmytro Kysylevskyi.
The simplified procedure for changing the designated use of land plots applies to agricultural land outside populated areas, where no urban planning documentation has been developed, for the placement of facilities in industry and energy defined by law:
Industrial buildings and warehouses
Pipelines, utilities, and power transmission lines (excluding main oil pipelines and main gas pipelines)
Complex industrial structures (excluding enterprises and facilities for the enrichment and processing of nuclear materials; facilities and furnaces for waste incineration; nuclear power plants)
Buildings for agricultural purposes, forestry, and fisheries.
In September, the Chinese economy showed higher-than-expected growth rates in industry and retail trade, indicating a gradual recovery in domestic demand and business activity.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, industrial production grew by 6.5% year-on-year, the highest rate since June. In August, growth was 5.2%, and analysts had expected a slowdown to 5%.
The largest contributors were:
manufacturing — +7.3%,
mining — +6.4%,
oil and gas — +8.9%,
automobile production — +16%,
computers and telecommunications equipment — +11.3%.
Growth was recorded in 36 of 41 sectors of the economy. Overall, industrial production increased by 6.2% in the first nine months of 2025 compared to the same period last year.
Retail sales in September grew by 3% year-on-year. This is slightly less than in August (3.4%), but still better than analysts’ forecasts (2.9%).
The largest increases were in sales of food products (+6.3%), jewelry (+9.7%), and clothing (+4.7%). Car sales rose by 1.6%, while petroleum product sales fell by 7.1%.
Since the beginning of the year, retail turnover has reached 36.6 trillion yuan (about $5.1 trillion), which is 4.5% more than a year earlier.
Investments in fixed assets as a whole declined slightly, by 0.5%, mainly due to a decline in the construction sector (-13.9%). At the same time, investments in infrastructure and manufacturing grew by 1.1% and 4%, respectively.
The unemployment rate in September fell to 5.2% from 5.3% a month earlier.
Experts from the Experts Club analytical center note that the Chinese economy remains stable despite the slowdown in global demand and difficulties in the real estate sector.
Reference: Experts Club.
For several years now, China has ranked first in the world in terms of economic size, calculated in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), ahead of the US and the EU. This confirms its status as the largest industrial and consumer center on the planet.
The mining and metallurgical group Metinvest plans to invest $293 million in its assets this year, while last year the total amount of investments, including joint ventures, amounted to $251 million, about 90% of which went to the development of Ukrainian enterprises. According to dsnews.ua’s article “Top 10 Successful Investor Companies in Ukraine,” Metinvest entered the top ten leading investors in Ukraine: $90 million in the first half of 2025. These investments were directed mainly at supporting technologies, maintaining production volumes, and ensuring labor safety.
As before, the funds are concentrated on critical areas: the mining segment, to ensure the production cycle, and the energy sector, to minimize blackout risks.
Despite the proximity of the front line, Metinvest continues large-scale repair and modernization works at its enterprises. In the first half of 2025, investments in repairs and equipment amounted to $28.8 million at Kametstal, $6.4 million at Zaporizhstal, $19 million at Northern GOK, and $3 million at Central GOK. The group focuses particularly on Kametstal and the mining and beneficiation plants.
At Kametstal, the first overhaul of Blast Furnace No. 9 since the start of the full-scale invasion was completed for $16 million, and equipment of one of the converters was restored. At Southern GOK, a new vacuum pump production station No. 4 is being built with a planned capacity of over 100,000 tons of concentrate per month.
A priority is the construction of a tailings thickening plant at Northern GOK. The relevant equipment will be purchased from the Finnish industrial manufacturer Metso Finland, for which Metinvest opened a credit line of EUR 23.6 million at Deutsche Bank.
The group is taking up the challenge of “greening” production processes, particularly within the EU’s environmental policy framework. From 2026, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) should come into full effect, obliging importers to buy certificates compensating for emissions contained in goods imported to the EU. The EU may postpone CBAM for Ukraine due to the war.
At Northern GOK, one of the LURGI 552 roasting machines is being redesigned to produce improved pellets that meet EU green metallurgy requirements. Capital investments at Kametstal also support the green transition. Overall, the group estimates the green modernization of its assets at about $8 billion.
The group pays special attention to energy security. Between 2022 and 2024, it spent UAH 159.4 million on 242 diesel generators with a total capacity of 22.9 MW. Another UAH 240 million was allocated to modernize and maintain steam generation with a nominal capacity of 89 MW. At Kametstal, maneuverable gas generation has started in pilot mode.
Metinvest has major plans for developing its own generation: gas piston generators at Northern, Central GOKs and Kametstal (29 MW, $26 million), as well as solar power plants at Central GOK (23.8 MW) and Kametstal (13.3 MW) worth $18.1 million in 2025–2026.
Another important direction is investment in artificial intelligence technologies. Metinvest Digital, the group’s IT company, is responsible for R&D. Its solutions are quickly implemented in production. The AI tool ForgeCheck helps control product quality at Zaporizhstal by detecting slab defects, reducing complaints and saving electricity.
Another system, the SPAIS platform, integrates into industrial video surveillance to monitor safety compliance, helping reduce workplace violations.
According to Metinvest B.V.’s report, in the first half of 2025, capital investments decreased by 28% to $91 million compared to $127 million a year earlier. $52 million was invested in metallurgy and $38 million in mining. 79% of expenses went to maintenance (90% in the first half of 2024), the rest to strategic projects.
In 2024, capital investments decreased by 17% to $235 million from $284 million in 2023. $81 million was invested in metallurgy and $146 million in mining.
Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of mining and metallurgical companies. Its enterprises are located in Ukraine — in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions — as well as in European countries. The main shareholders of the holding are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart-Holding (23.76%), which jointly manage it. Metinvest Holding LLC is the group’s management company.
Germany is losing industrial jobs at an accelerated rate – and this is no longer a localized slump, but a steady trend. According to a fresh study by EY, the industry cut employment by 2.1% over the year, with the auto industry losing about 51,500 jobs (-6.7% year-on-year). Weak demand, expensive energy, competition from Asia, US duties and the expensive transition to electric vehicles are squeezing margins and forcing concerns to optimize staffing levels. In Q2 2025, industry revenue fell 2.1% YoY to €533bn, continuing a series of quarterly declines.
Structurally, the auto sector was the hardest hit, but contractions are also evident in mechanical engineering and metals, while chemicals and pharma are showing relative stability, as evidenced by both public excerpts from the EY barometer and industry commentary in the German business press. In aggregate, German industry has shed around a quarter of a million jobs since 2019, reflecting the cumulative effect of several consecutive shocks.
Operational metrics point to a sluggish cycle, with new orders in manufacturing falling in June and annualized turnover declining; this combination usually signifies weakness over the horizon of the coming quarters, even if individual months produce technical bounces in production. At the macro level, this is combined with a fall in GDP in Q2 and a downward revision of the dynamics of the beginning of the year.
The political backdrop has become tougher, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz openly stating that the current welfare state model is “unfundable” without reforms, signaling a possible shift in budget priorities in favor of incentives for employment and industrial competitiveness. For business, this means less room for “inertia” subsidies and more pressure on productivity, R&D and export adaptation.
What this means for companies and the labor market. Automakers and their supply chain will likely face a second wave of restructuring to accommodate the EV economy and US tariff geopolitics; engineering will continue to lose low-margin positions to Asian competitors, and growth will shift to high-engineering value-added niches. For chemicals and pharma, the window of resilience is preserved through contractual models and pricing power, but energy-intensive segments remain vulnerable to spot gas and electricity disruptions. The labor market will be “two-speed”: release on the assembly line and in basic metalworking in parallel with a shortage of specialists in automation, electronics, software, battery technologies and chemical technologies – this is already evident in the structure of vacancies and industry surveys.
Conclusion. The job cuts are not the “end of industry” but a painful realignment: Germany is losing mass jobs where it is losing out on costs and is trying to retain and grow employment in capital- and knowledge-intensive segments. The key to a turnaround is cheaper energy, faster permitting procedures, prioritization of industrial investments and retraining for the electric and digital agenda. In the meantime, order and turnover statistics signal that the bottom of the cycle has not yet been passed.
https://t.me/relocationrs/1332
