The German Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 0.2% during the first quarter of 2022 despite the impact of war in ukraineaccording to preliminary data published this Friday.
Germany thus avoids technical recession, after a drop in GDP in the fourth quarter of 2021 of 0.3%, although “the war in Ukraine is increasingly influencing the situation,” the Destatis Statistics Institute said in a statement.
The indicator shows better data than the forecast of the financial analyst service Factset, which forecast a growth of 0.15 percent.
In one year, the German GDP increased by 3.7 percent.
The positive result is explained by “heavy investments”, underlines Destatis.
The german economy shows a dynamism driven by “the relaxation of the measures against the coronavirus, which had a positive effect”, analyzes Jens Oliver Niklash, of the LBBW Bank.
But the war in ukraine continues to have a strong impact on the country.
The largest economy in the euro zone It has suffered the economic consequences of the conflict since February. The export industry is the main affected.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine it aggravated bottlenecks in many markets, due to sanctions imposed against Russia and production stoppages in Ukraine, which mainly supplies the automobile sector.
In addition, the conflict had a strong impact on energy priceswhich fueled inflation, which reached 7.4% year-on-year in April.
This galloping increase in prices affected both the purchasing power of households and the income of companies.
Consequently, Germany lowered its growth forecasts to 2.2% for this year, from 3.6% forecast in January.