Industrial orders in Germany rebounded in May after a slide in April, preliminary official data showed Thursday, but fell short of analysts' hopes for Europe's largest economy.

There were 1.0 percent more new contracts in May than in the previous month, correcting for seasonal effects, federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement.

May's rebound was well short of forecasts from analysts surveyed by data company Factset, who had predicted growth of 1.9 percent.

Destatis noted that discounting more volatile large contracts for items like aircraft showed a slight contraction of 0.3 percent in overall orders in May, correcting for seasonal and calendar effects.

Revised figures also showed that the fall in April was larger than previously thought, at 2.2 percent compared with March.

Industrial orders are closely watched as an indicator of the future level of activity in an economy.

Looking more closely at May's figures, a 3.1-percent increase in orders from abroad accounted for all of the growth, while demand from within Germany fell by 1.9 percent.

Contracts from eurozone neighbours grew 1.7 percent and demand from the rest of the world expanded more than twice as fast, at 4.0 percent.

Across different industrial sectors, producer goods makers saw demand shrink 0.7 percent and consumer goods firms lost 2.9 percent.

Meanwhile, capital goods makers enjoyed 2.6-percent growth in orders.

Source: AFP