The economy ministry said the seasonally adjusted rise from February 'cannot even begin' to make up for recent months, with orders for goods made by the world's top exporter off a whopping 14.5 per cent in the first quarter.

'But the latest numbers show that the hitherto unbroken plunge has broken its fall and that hope for a normalisation can grow,' the ministry said in a statement.

The rise - economists had expected a moderate fall - is the first piece of hard data to back up the government's prediction that the economy is set to grow slightly in 2010 after slumping a record six percent this year.

Orders from abroad were up 5.6 per cent and those from within Germany rose 1.1 per cent, with all three main industrial sectors reporting a pick-up in business.

The ministry cautioned however that there were a large number of very large, single orders recorded in March, something which may have skewed the data and made the picture out to be rosier than it is in reality. -- AFP