(Bloomberg) — Germany’s statistics authority plans to stop
sending data under embargo to news agencies in the new year.
In an announcement on Friday, the Federal Statistics Office
said since it started distributing embargoed material about 20
years ago, “the technical environment and media landscape has
changed.”
“It’s nearly impossible to determine what qualifies as an
agency in the classical sense,” said the office, also known as
Destatis.
The change will affect the release of data including
inflation, factory orders and retail sales, some of which can
move German bonds and the euro. They are currently sent out to
news agencies under embargo about 30 minutes before release.