Germany's long economic boom ending: experts

Germany's economic boom has run its course, the country's five top economic institutes said on Thursday, and reduced their prognosis for GDP growth in 2019 from 1.9% to 0.8%t.

In their Joint Economic Forecast, the experts said that political risks were one reason that global economic conditions continued to be difficult, warning among other things of a no-deal Brexit.

"The long-term upswing of the German economy has come to an end," the deputy president of the Halle Insitute for Economic Research (IWH), Oliver Holtermöller said.

Read more: 2019: The year after peak global growth

Several political risks

However, Holtermöller said that the "chance of a pronounced recession" was considered "to be slight," with the experts leaving their prognosis for 2020 unchanged at 1.8%.

But the report said that if Britain were to leave the EU without a deal on April 12, economic growth both this year and the next would likely be "significantly lower" than has previously been estimated.

Other risks to economic growth cited in the report were the trade dispute between the USA and China, as well as, at the national level, a lack of specialized labor, supply shortfalls and difficulties in the car industry.

A number of economic research institutes have drastically revised their growth forecasts downward for Germany since the start of the year, including the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

It now predicts GNP growth for Germany this year of just 0.7%.

Read more: What makes Germany tick? A star psychologist reveals the state of the nation

tj/jil (Reuters, AFP)

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