BERLIN: Private consumption and foreign trade recorded 1.5 percent expansion in Germany in 2014, its best performance in three years but a result which masked weakness in the final three quarters of the year. Private consumption added 0.6 percentage points to growth last year, preliminary data from the Federal Statistics Office showed.
Record high employment, rising wages and moderate inflation are all boosting household spending in Germany.
Foreign trade, a traditional driver of the economy which has lost momentum in recent years, contributed 0.4 percentage points despite persistent sluggishness in Europe, Germany’s main export market, and crises in Ukraine and the Middle East.
But economists pointed out that the economy had not fared as well in 2014 as the full-year data for gross domestic product (GDP) growth suggested.
“On closer inspection, the German economy was in stall mode for much of the year,” said Ferdinand Fichter of the DIW economic institute in Berlin. “In reality it was only the strong start to 2014 that led to this good result, and that was largely down to a mild winter.”
