FRANKFURT - German trade slumped again in February and France posted a steeper trade deficit, signs that Europe's export engine still faces strains though other data suggest crisis pressures might be easing.
Germany, the biggest European economy and the world's leading exporter last year, said Wednesday that exports shed a record 23.1 percent in Febuary from the same month a year earlier, following a fall of 23 percent in January.
Imports declined by 16.4 percent in February, allowing Germany to maintain a trade surplus of 8.7 billion euros (11.5 billion dollars), the Destatis statistics office said.
Tentative signs of fragile "green shoots" here and there in the global economy, optimism over the outcome of the G20 summit of leading nations last week, and a strong if brief stock market bounce have eased some of the deep pessimism of months of recessionary data
But "the nightmare for German companies is not over yet," UniCredit economist Andreas Rees said. "There are few signs that exports will stop shrinking anytime soon."
In France, the trade deficit swelled in February to 4.107 billion euros from 3.714 billion euros in January, customs service data showed.
The French trade balance shows a rapidly worsening cumulative deficit on a sliding 12-month basis.
"Demand for French goods literally collapsed under the weight of the international recession," said analyst Aleander Law of the Xerfi research group, though he thought the trade balance could be about to improve.
For Capital Economics economist Jennifer McKeown, however, "it is still much too soon to call a significant recovery in exports in the eurozone's largest economies."
The French finance ministry nonetheless said that trade, which contracted sharply in the last quarter of 2008, was stabilising.
And while German industrial orders fell by 3.5 percent in February from the previous month, that figure suggested a long fall could be nearing the bottom.
In January, orders for German industrial goods had dropped by a revised 6.7 percent the economy ministry said, noting that "the decline in the propensity to order had slowed in February."
But Rees said forward looking indicators signalled more pressure on exports until at least mid-year.
Signs of such pressure were in abundance moreover, with the luxury car maker Daimler saying it expected a "clearly negative" result in the first three months of 2009, and no improvement before the second half of the year.
A court in northwestern Osnabrueck said the auto parts maker Karmann had filed for insolvency, a move trade union IG Metall said would affect 3,570 workers in Germany.
Founded in 1901, Karmann specialises in producing car bodies, in particular for convertible and coupe models sold by Mercedes, Renault and Volkswagen.
In the shipping sector, the boss of container giant Hapag-Lloyd told a German newspaper "there will be clear cuts" in the number of jobs at his firm.
"We should be alarmed by the economic conditions in our sector," Michael Behrendt said.
An increasing number of German companies are planning to cut jobs over the next year, according to a survey published Wednesday.
The study by the consultancy Droege & Comp and business daily Handelsblatt found that 39 percent of those polled expected to slash their workforce, a rise of three percentage points from the previous month.
In March, German unemployment edged up to 8.6 percent of the workforce.
But the German economy ministry focused on positive aspects on Wednesday, saying that "in certain areas, such as the automobile sector or capital goods, there was even a slight rise in orders" in February.
Manufacturers of capital goods, those used to produce other goods, reported a monthly increase in foreign orders of two percent, the first upward movement since August.
On a 12-month basis however the picture remained gloomy, and in the two month period of January and February, orders for German industrial goods showed a hefty drop of 37.6 percent from the same period a year earlier.
German investment and consumption have failed to make up for the sharp drop in trade, and authorities admit the economy will contract by more than the current forecast of 2.25 percent this year.