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Berlin says its economic growth forecast may be too low

Business Materials 17 July 2010 17:14 (UTC +04:00)
Berlin said Saturday its economic growth forecast for this year may be too low because German exports are booming, reported DPA.
Berlin says its economic growth forecast may be too low

Berlin said Saturday its economic growth forecast for this year may be too low because German exports are booming, reported DPA.

In remarks to appear Sunday in the newspaper BZ am Sonntag, Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle said, "The government has so far been been forecasting 1.4-per-cent growth for this year.

"But I'm sure it will be significantly more when we come to the end of the year." He said Germany's economic health had been restored by "the motor of exports" with industry now investing anew.

"They're already beginning to call workers for extra shifts," he said.

Another news report, in the news magazine Der Spiegel, said the government's still unpublished data on growth in the second quarter of this year showed it had been 1.5 per cent in year-on-year terms, not the 0.9 per cent forecast earlier by Berlin.

Process industries had lifted output 5 per cent in the second quarter compared to the first.

The magazine said the government's internal estimate was that if the trend remained steady, gross domestic product would grow significantly more than 2 per cent this year compared to 2009.

German growth is a controversial topic, because domestic consumption remains subdued, leading to charges in Washington and Paris that the Germans are profiting from emerging economies such as China, yet not helping other western nations to return to growth.

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