German exports tumble
October 9, 2014
German exports dropped by a staggering 5.8 percent in August month-on-month, the National Statistics Office, Destatis, announced Thursday. It was the lowest level recorded in five and a half years, it added.
Given the continued geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and EU sanctions against Russia for its role in the Ukraine conflict, analysts polled by Reuters had been pessimistic about the development of German shipments abroad, but they had only penciled in a 4.0-percent drop for the month under review.
German companies sold goods to the tune of 84.1 billion euros ($107.2 billion), Destatis reported.
Pessimistic outlook
The office said exports to fellow EU countries increased by 2 percent year-on-year, but contracted by 4.7 percent for the rest of the world.
Germany's trade surplus shrank to 17.5 billion euros because of weak exports overall.
According to Reuters, Germany's leading economic institutes have revised downward their forecast for national annual growth from 1.9 percent to 1.3 percent this year. The pundits are equally pessimistic about next year where gross domestic product is expected to expand by a meager 1.2 percent instead of the 2.0 percent forecast earlier.
hg/sgb (dpa, AFP)