Official data has shown that the economic growth of Germany was at 0.6% in 2019, the weakest performance by the country since 2013.
According to official figures, Germany recorded an economic growth of 0.6% last year, the weakest growth performance the country had since 2013. The German statistics office attributed the said growth mainly to household spending.
Official data revealed that business investment in machinery and equipment has weakened but exports went up albeit more slowly than previous years. Meanwhile industrial production, excluding construction, decreased by 0.5%.
While the statistics office has yet to publish full data for the fourth quarter of 2019, it has enough information to assess the impact on the year as a whole.
According to Claus Vistesen of Pantheon Macroeconomics, growth in the final three months of last year was likely to have been about 0.1% to 0.2%. This follows a very weak growth in the third quarter and a partial decline in the second quarter of last year.
Those previous quarterly data demonstrated how Germany avoided a recession last year despite two consecutive quarters of contraction. However, these figures as well as those for the full year, show how Europe's largest economy struggle to generate growth.
Germany is the third largest exporter of automobiles, following the US and China, and the international trade tensions have been perceived to have affected the country. While car exports, relatively went up with a 0.9% growth, this was a relatively weak contribution to the economic growth.
The statistics office said "especially low output in the automotive industry contributed to the decrease" in industry activity. However, services and construction, in particular, posted growths last year.
Germany's employment rate has continued to expand amidst the weak economic growth but the rate of of new job creation has slowed down. Economic activity per person barely grew at all at just 0.1% while output per employed person actually fell by 0.3%.
Unemployment in Germany remains among the lowest globally at 3.1% .
