Germany narrowly avoids recession

The German economy has defied expectations of recession by growing 0.1 per cent in the third quarter as higher household and government spending offset a sharp downturn in the country’s export-focused manufacturing sector.

The slight growth in the German economy, which was announced on Thursday, could ease the pressure on Angela Merkel’s government to ditch its commitment to budget surpluses and inject more fiscal stimulus.

Germany’s federal statistics office changed its figures for the first and second quarters. It revised down Germany’s second-quarter economic contraction from minus 0.1 per cent to minus 0.2 per cent, while revising up first-quarter growth figures from 0.4 per cent to 0.5 per cent.

Via Financial Times