Germany may be showing the first signs of pulling out of the worst economic recession since World War II, the country’s Finance Ministry said, citing key indicators in the second quarter.
The pace of economic contraction is probably slowing in the three months to June, helped by stimulus programs that are stabilizing domestic demand, the ministry said yesterday in its report for this month.
Germany’s economy “is likely to remain weak for some time,” the report said. “Still, there are signs that the contraction of the economy may slow in the second quarter.”
The German economy may shrink by 6 percent this year, the government has forecast.
The economy, Europe’s largest, contracted by 3.8 percent in the first quarter, the most since data were first compiled in 1970, as exports that account for about a third of economic growth plummeted on the global crisis.
The contraction may slow to 0.5 percent in the second quarter, the Berlin-based DIW economic institute forecast on Monday.
Consumer prices will continue to remain calm in coming months, easing the recession.
Temporary deflation may also set in this year, the ministry’s forecasters said.
Yesterday the Federal Statistics Office reported that producer prices fell at the fastest rate in almost 22 years last month as energy costs declined and demand weakened.
Prices fell 2.7 percent from a year earlier after dropping by an annual 0.5 percent in March, the office in Wiesbaden said.
That’s the biggest drop since June 1987 and exceeded economists’ forecast for 1.3 percent decline.
“We see disinflation continuing throughout the summer in response to the development of oil prices,” Mario Gruppe, an economist at NordLB in Hannover, Germany, said in a telephone interview. “At the end of the summer, producer prices will start to increase again, as will consumer prices.”
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
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