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German economy in recession: Destatis data
AFP - Friday, November 14
FRANKFURT (AFP) - - Europe's biggest economy Germany has fallen into recession, the latest victim to the global financial crisis, official Destatis figures showed on Thursday.
The German economy contracted 0.5 percent in the third quarter, more than expected, following a contraction of a revised 0.4 percent in the second quarter, meeting the technical definition for a recession -- two consecutive quarters of shrinking economic activity.
Analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a smaller contraction of 0.1 percent in the third quarter.
The second quarter was initially given as a contraction of 0.5 percent after the economy expanded 1.4 percent in the three months to March.
On Wednesday, a panel of top economists warned that growth would come to a halt next year and blasted government plans plans to bolster the economy.
They put growth this year at 1.7 percent
Berlin recently cut its forecast for economic growth to 0.2 percent in 2009 as the financial crisis continues to send shock waves around the world.
The world's leading exporter has been hit by weakening activity in its major markets while domestic consumption has remained at low levels. Corporate investment has suffered in turn from a sharp decline in the business outlook.
Although consumption and business inventories increased slightly in the third quarter, imports rose considerably while exports declined, the national statistics office Destatis said.
On Wednesday, the economists' panel dismissed plans for a multi-billion-euro bundle of tax breaks and state investment as a "hotch-potch of isolated projects designed to give the impression that the government is doing something."
It said the package was far too small to have a real impact, and was skewed toward specific industries such as automaking, as a result of heavy lobbying.
The experts called for more government spending to improve infrastructure and the educational system, even if it meant increasing the public debt.
Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged her government was grappling with a crisis that was difficult to manage or fully understand and said Berlin was doing its best to help the country weather the storm.
"We are in a situation now in which it is extremely difficult for all of us to know exactly what the future will bring," she said.
The experts also forecast that German unemployment would rise 1.1 percentage points next year.
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Brokers at the stock exchange in the central German city of Frankfurt/M. on November 10. Europe's biggest economy Germany has fallen into recession, the latest victim to the global financial crisis, official Destatis figures showed on Thursday.
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