BRUSSELS, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Euro zone industrial new orders fell more than expected in September against August and shrank in annual terms, data showed on Monday, pointing to further weakness in industry in coming months.
Orders in the 15-country currency area fell 3.9 percent month-on-month for a 1.1 percent year-on-year contraction, European Union statistics office Eurostat said.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected orders to fall 3.0 percent in monthly terms and 1.9 percent annually.
The euro zone is in technical recession after output shrank for the second quarter in a row in the July-September period, and economists expect more quarters of decline.
The fall in orders came mainly because of a 5.1 percent month-on-month plunge in demand for metals and fabricated metal products as well as a 3.8 percent fall in the volatile demand for ships, planes and trains.
Industrial orders indicate the level of future industrial activity. The data only partly covers the period when the year-old global credit crunch turned into the worst crisis on financial markets since the 1930s in mid-September and October.
The figures are likely to reinforce expectations that the European Central Bank will cut interest rates again in December following a 0.50 percentage point reduction in November to 3.25 percent. (Reporting by Jan Strupczewski and Marcin Grajewski, editing by Dale Hudson)