The German economy slowed in the third quarter despite a strong pick-up in both corporate investment and government spending, data released on Friday showed.
Europe’s biggest economy expanded by a modest 0.3 per cent quarter-on-quarter during the three months to the end of September, down from 0.7 per cent in the second quarter, the statistics office said, confirming the data it released last week.
“Positive contributions in the third quarter were made exclusively by domestic demand,” it said.
In particular, this included a quarter-on-quarter 0.5 per cent gain in investment in machinery and equipment. Building sector investment jumped 2.4 per cent.
Government spending was up 0.5 per cent, while consumer spending edged higher by 0.1 per cent.
However, trade acted as a drag on the nation’s third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) with imports growing by 0.8 per cent and at a much faster pace than exports, which increased by just 0.1 per cent.
As a result, trade made a negative contribution to GDP of minus 0.4 percentage points, the statistics office said.
Year-on-year GDP grew 1.1 per cent in the third quarter compared with 0.9 per cent in the three months ended June.