German electronics companies, which had forecast growth this year, now say that output will fall by between 4% and 5% compared with 1991: the German ZVEI trade group attributed the slide to a downturn in the domestic economic cycle and to the failure of stronger foreign demand to emerge in the autumn as expected – domestic production in the first nine months was 4.3% down, compared with a forecast of 2% to 3% growth; production rose by 5.6% in 1991 and were it not for the telecommunications expansion taking place in former East Germany and good building sector activity, the 1992 decline would be even worse; in the first nine months, computer hardware production fell by 26% in the period.
