The German economy got the third quarter off to a sluggish start. “This was due primarily to export-oriented industry, where the downturn continued,” according to the current issue of the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report.

Germany is facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Bundesbank’s latest Monthly Report. The experts regard a slide into a marked recession as being unavoidable. An economic recovery would set in only when the pandemic risk had been effectively brought under control.

In a joint op-ed piece, Bundesbank Vice-President Claudia Buch, together with her colleagues Sylvie Goulard of Banque de France and Luigi Federico Signorini of Banca d’Italia, call on politicians to seek European solutions in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Les Echos and La Repubblica newspapers, they write that other policy areas can learn from European cooperation in the field of financial stability.

Economic activity in Germany has slowed down significantly. Speaking on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank spring meeting in Washington, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann noted that economic growth in 2019 will lag far behind potential output growth of 1.5%.

The Bundesbank expects the German economy to grow strongly again after a limited setback in the final quarter of 2020 and first quarter of 2021. According to current projections, real gross domestic product could pick up sharply in the following two years and reach its pre-crisis level again in early 2022. This is predicated on the pandemic containment measures being quickly loosened from spring 2021 and ultimately expiring altogether in the early months of 2022.

Zum Ende des ersten Quartals 2020 betrug das Geldvermögen der privaten Haushalte in Deutschland 6 337 Mrd €.