BERLIN (Reuters) - Materials shortages have decreased in Germany's manufacturing sector, a survey by the Ifo economic institute published on Thursday showed.
In January, 48.4% of the companies surveyed reported problems, down from 50.7% in December, Ifo said.
"Given the mild winter recession that's emerging, we would've liked to see a stronger decline," Klaus Wohlrabe, head of surveys at Ifo, said in a statement. "Many companies are only slowly managing to work through their high order backlogs."