German plant and machinery orders declined for a fourth month in February, driven by a drop in foreign demand, the VDMA machine-makers’ association said. 

Orders, adjusted for inflation, fell 16 percent from a year earlier after declining an annual 6 percent in January, the Frankfurt-based VDMA said in an e-mailed statement today. Domestic orders fell 12 percent, while export orders dropped 18 percent. In the three months through February, orders declined 11 percent compared to the same period a year ago. 

“The high rates of decline still go back to an extremely high previous-year level,” VDMA chief economist Ralph Wiechers said in the statement. “The impression that order intake stabilized at the current level has firmed in February.” 

In February 2011, machinery orders increased 38 percent from a year earlier.