The Daily Telegraph, March 24, Roger Bootle
We all know that the UK economy is in a pickle. Having said that, there are some signs that things are looking a little bit better, with inflation falling fast and interest rates set to be reduced in the summer.
While we obsessed about our many shortcomings, less attention was paid to what is happening to the biggest economy in Europe, namely Germany.
Despite last week’s rise in the influential German Ifo survey, it looks as though GDP will contract this quarter, meaning that Germany will be in technical recession. Nor do the future prospects look good. Whatever happened to the German economy
German economic weakness is nothing new. Of course, all countries in the developed world suffered during the Covid period and have had difficulties in recovering since. Yet German growth stalled in 2017, three years before the pandemic, while industrial production has been in a pretty steep decline ever since.
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