On Friday, Germany’s GDP growth rate for the final quarter of last year was revealed and unfortunately, it didn’t make for great reading. Like most around the globe, the country’s economy has been impacted by the ongoing Covid pandemic, leading to fluctuations in its performance over the past two years. Here, Express.co.uk analyses the latest figures and what factors have influenced it.
What are the latest figures?
On Friday statistics released by Destatis – the Federal Statistical Office of Germany – revealed the German economy had contracted by 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Economists had originally predicted it to fall by 0.3 percent.
In the second and third quarters of last year, the country’s economy had grown by 2.2 and 1.7 percent respectively.
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On Friday, Germany also announced that one year after the UK had officially exited the European Union (EU) its exports to the British Isles were down 2.5 percent.
In a statement, Destatis said: “One year after the United Kingdom left the European Union, German exports to the UK continued to decline.
“Based on first provisional results, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports that Germany exported goods to the value of 65.4 billion euros to the United Kingdom in 2021.
“Compared with 2020, exports to the United Kingdom decreased further by 2.5 percent in 2021 as a result of the Brexit, following a year-on-year decline of 15.3 percent in 2020, the year dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The data for the entire year 2021 are based on a first release of the export figures available for December 2021.”
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