German 3Q GDP falls

The German statistics office Destatis on Thursday confirmed its earlier estimate that German gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.2 percent, down by half o the previous quarter and a far cry from the 0.7 percent GDP expansion reported for the beginning of the year.

In the period covering the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum in Britain, domestic spending rose 0.4 percent and state expenditure by one percent compared to the preceding quarter, the data showed.

But gross investment and imports experienced negligible growth, while exports even fell by 0.4 percent to about 357 billion euros.

"Foreign trade had a negative effect on GDP growth in the order of 0.3 percentage points," Destatis said.

Economists expect Germany's growth to pick up again in the final three months of the year, with the government predicting an annual rate of expansion of 1.8 percent, after 1.7 percent in 2015. For next year, a slight cooling is expected for the economy, slowing expansion to an estimated 1.4 percent.

uhe/jd (Reuters, AFP, dpa)