German Growth Remains Sluggish

The Federal Statistical Office announced on Thursday that gross domestic product rose by just 0.3 percent in the third quarter over the previous three-month period. During the same period a year earlier, the economy grew by 0.4 percent. Private consumption increased by 0.5 percent in the third quarter compared to 0.1 percent rise in the previous quarter.

Despite the slight surge in economic growth in the third quarter, financial analysts in Germany are predicting that Germany is hovering on the brink of a second mini-recession. In the "Financial Times Deutschland" newspaper, several experts forecast that the economy will shrink in the fourth quarter and in the first quarter of 2003. The last time Germany saw two quarters with falling economic growth was in 1993.

In separate but related news, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) issued a forecast that the global economy will only start to pick up again in the coming year. The OECD experts are forecasting that the German economy will grow by a disappointing 1.5 percent in the coming year and then by a robust 2.5 percent in 2004.