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Economy after Corona: Hope for the boom

2021-06-20T21:07:11.757Z


The industry reports a record order book, researchers are increasing their growth forecasts: Vaccinations and easing fuel the hope that Germany is booming out of the crisis. But the risk of a setback remains.


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Zimmermann in Frankfurt (archive picture): Hopes on the horizon

Photo:

Boris Roessler / picture-alliance / dpa

The prospects for Germany's economy are improving noticeably.

The economic research institute RWI increased its growth expectations for the current year from 3.6 to 3.7 percent.

For 2022, the RWI expects an increase in gross domestic product of 4.7 percent instead of 3 percent as in the forecast from March.

The gross domestic product will probably reach the pre-crisis level by the end of this year, it said.

The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) is similarly optimistic.

The Berlin economists raised their forecast for economic growth in 2021 from 3.0 to 3.2 percent and for 2022 from 3.8 to 4.3 percent.

"The economy in Germany is picking up speed again in the wake of the relaxation of infection control measures," said RIW economic chief Torsten Schmidt.

DIW President Marcel Fratzscher said: "The German economy will probably have a good summer, but it is not over the mountain yet." The risk of a setback in autumn is still high if the number of infections then increases again.

Record orders for the industry

According to the researchers, the recovery in the service sectors is primarily responsible for the growth that is already noticeable. The manufacturing industry, on the other hand, will initially be slowed down by the increasing supply bottlenecks for raw materials and intermediate products, according to RWI.

However, there is no shortage of orders in the industry.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, the order backlog grew by 2.9 percent in April compared to the previous month.

It rose for the eleventh month in a row and has reached its highest level since the statistics were introduced in January 2015.

The open orders from Germany increased by 2.4 percent, those from abroad by as much as 3.2 percent.

Compared to February 2020 - the last month before the start of the corona-related restrictions in Germany - the number is now 11.4 percent higher, seasonally and calendar adjusted.

Inflation rate rises noticeably

The lack of material will initially keep lait RWI prices high. Since the bottlenecks are only likely to be removed gradually, the price pressure will persist until the end of the year, the researchers suspect. For this year, the RWI expects an average inflation rate of 2.5 percent. In the coming year, inflation should be an average of 1.9 percent. The DIW even expects an inflation rate of 2.7 percent in the current year.

Investors around the world are closely monitoring the risks of a prolonged price spike that could be longer than temporary.

In Germany, inflation had risen for the last five months in a row and is now 2.5 percent, the highest level since 2011. Fratzscher simply sees this as a normalization after the corona crisis, which is even desirable from the point of view of many companies.

"When prices go up, they will become profitable or more profitable again," he said.

This applies above all to small and medium-sized companies that now have to reduce debts and build up reserves again.

Anyone who now paints the specter of great dearth on the wall is acting out of Fratzschers' being "dishonest".

ssu / dpa / Reuters

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-06-20

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