Economy Ministry to drastically reduce growth forecast
16 Jan, 2009
Updated Fri 16 Jan 2009 10:10 CEST
The Economy Ministry will revise its economic forecast for 2009 significantly lower next week to show Germany is likely to suffer the worst recession since World War II, daily Financial Times Deutschland reported on Friday.
Sources within the German government told the paper that it will revise its annual economic forecast to show a contraction of the country’s gross domestic product by 2.25 percent.
Until now, the government had expected slight growth of 0.2 percent for this year.
"In light of the recession, this forecast couldn’t be preserved," the paper said.
There has been speculation since December that the government would have to slash its forecast and that the economy could shrink by up to 3 percent in 2009. The country’s leading economic research institutes all expect a difficult year of recession.
The German economy managed to grow 1.3 percent in 2008.
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Sources within the German government told the paper that it will revise its annual economic forecast to show a contraction of the country’s gross domestic product by 2.25 percent.
Until now, the government had expected slight growth of 0.2 percent for this year.
"In light of the recession, this forecast couldn’t be preserved," the paper said.
There has been speculation since December that the government would have to slash its forecast and that the economy could shrink by up to 3 percent in 2009. The country’s leading economic research institutes all expect a difficult year of recession.
The German economy managed to grow 1.3 percent in 2008.
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