World News: German Exports Signal Resilience
German exports rose sharply in August and industrial output fell only modestly, bolstering hopes that Europe's largest economy will expand again in the third quarter even as much of the euro zone remains in recession.</br></br>Exports increased 2.4% on the month in August, in adjusted terms, and jumped 5.8% on the year as orders from outside the European Union surged, according to data published Monday by the federal statistics office.</br></br>The surge in German orders outside the euro zone has been driven in recent months by trade with the U.S., Russia and China. Exports to the U.S. rose 20% in January to July from the previous year, those to Russia rose 16%, and those to China were up 9%, according to data from the statistics office.</br></br>"The message from today's data is that the German economy has shown unexpected resilience to the global economic downturn in the third quarter," said Chris Williamson, an economist at Markit in London.</br></br>German industrial output fell 0.5% on the month in adjusted terms, after rising by a downwardly revised 1.2% in July, the economics ministry said. The trend for industrial production remains stable, it said, even if "lagging demand . . . signals a more subdued development" in the months ahead.