German industrial orders returned to weak growth in November as increasing domestic demand in Europe's biggest economy balanced out a dip in foreign orders, official data showed by the Federal Statistical Office on Thursday. Still, the improvement was below expectations - and new figures also showed a larger-than-expected decline in retail sales in November, underlining the risk to spending in Germany as unemployment increases. "The recovery process has lost dynamism at present," an Economy Ministry statement said. Economists had expected a 1.5 percent rise in industrial orders for November. But the slowing growth "does not mean an abrupt end of the recovery in manufacturing," said Alexander Koch, an economist at UniCredit in Munich. "Further respectable improvements in (foreign) demand can be expected in the coming months," he said.