Germany's July flash composite PMI returns to growth; factory output posts strongest rise in four and a half years

S&P Global and Hamburg Commercial Bank (HCOB) released the flash July Purchasing Managers' Index on Friday, 24 July 2026 (2 Mordad 1405). Germany's composite index rose to 51.2 in July from 49.5 in June, moving back above the 50 mark that separates growth from contraction, after a three-month contraction that S&P Global had earlier attributed to the shock from the outbreak of war in West Asia.

Germany's manufacturing index reached 52.2 (above the 50.5 expected), with factory output posting its strongest rise in about four and a half years, driven mainly by new orders, including from abroad. The services index, at 49.6, remained just below the growth threshold.

Across the euro area, private-sector activity rose for the first time in four months, with the flash euro-area services index at 51.6. A return to growth in Europe's largest economy is a signal for global demand for goods and energy, a factor that feeds through to the oil market and, in turn, to Iran's export and foreign-currency revenue equation.