Through its academic survey, the Research Centre of the Deutsche Bundesbank is obtaining a picture of the current situation among firms in Germany and gaining greater insight into their expectations for the coming months. Over time, the survey also provides crucial information on changes within the corporate sector.

In the first quarter of 2025, slightly more firms than in the fourth quarter of 2024 reported that they had conducted loan negotiations in the respective preceding quarter (Q1 2025: 15%, Q4 2024: 14%). 

In the first quarter of 2025, firms’ assessments of the development of various metrics over the past 12 months were similar to their responses of the previous quarter. When asked how their short-term liquidity had changed over the past 12 months, 34% of firms responded that it had decreased and 21% said that it had increased (previous quarter: 33% and 20%, respectively). The spread between the two figures thus remained unchanged, at 13 percentage points.

As before, there was only a slight quarter-on-quarter change in firms’ expectations over the next 12 months. In the first quarter of 2025, somewhat more firms expected a decrease in short-term liquidity (31%; previous quarter: 30%) than an increase (17%; previous quarter: 15%). Compared with the fourth quarter of 2024, the gap between these two groups thus narrowed by one percentage point to 14%. 

In the first quarter of 2025, firms again considered the high level of regulation and government rules to be their greatest challenge in the short term. In March, this was considered to be the greatest challenge by 69% of firms, followed by the poor availability of workers, which was considered to be a serious problem by 55% of firms. In the first quarter of 2025, between 48% and 52% of firms believed high energy prices would be problematic for them going forward. Around 38% of firms said that competitive pressure would pose a challenge over the next six months. By contrast, around 32% believed this would not be a problem for them.