According to a survey by the Association for Manufacturing Technology (www.amtonline.org), US manufacturing technology orders fell significantly in January.

The latest figures show that orders totalled $341.17 million — down by over 32% from December’s $508.57 million and down by 4.8% from last January.

AMT president Douglas K Woods said: “December saw a sharp increase in sales compared with the previous month. This was driven by end-of-year orders rushed through in order to qualify for 2014 tax-rebate provisions that were enacted by the Government at the last minute.

"The decline in January wasn’t unexpected, and we still expect the manufacturing economy to stay on a stable path.”