Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann received ECB President Christine Lagarde at the Bundesbank. Mr Weidmann showed Ms Lagarde the Money Museum and the TARGET2 room.

German economic activity remained weak in the final quarter of 2019. Industry was the main factor weighing on aggregate output towards the end of the year, the Bundesbank’s economists write in the most recent edition of their Monthly Report. House price inflation in Germany lessened last year.

House prices in German towns and cities were up in 2019 by 6% on the year. This represents a marked slowdown in price growth compared with 2018. 

Speaking at Deutsche Börse’s New Year’s reception in Eschborn, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann says that monetary policy needs to be easier to understand.

At midnight (CET) on 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom left the European Union. During a transition period, the United Kingdom will remain a member of the single European market and the customs union – after this period, however, Brexit could have far-reaching repercussions for the financial section and elsewhere.

The Bundesbank registered approximately 55,200 counterfeit euro banknotes with a value of €3.3 million in 2019, representing a 5% decrease on the year.

The trade dispute between the United States and China has escalated over the past two years. However, as a study in the Bundesbank’s latest Monthly Report shows, neither US firms nor US consumers have benefited from the realignment of the country’s trade policy thus far.

In the Bundesbank’s estimation, the German economy is likely to have stagnated in the final quarter of 2019. The two-speed development of the economy continued, according to the latest Monthly Report.

The financial assets of households in Germany increased by €67 billion in the third quarter of 2019 and now amount to roughly €6.3 trillion. These financial assets consist, in particular, of low-risk assets like currency, deposits and claims on insurance corporations and pension funds.

Initial figures from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) indicate that the German economy expanded for the tenth consecutive year in 2019. However, momentum has tailed off: GDP growth was only 0.6% on the year, following a year-on-year uptick of 1.5% in 2018.