(DPA)
An awful lot of trouble awaits Germany. Retail sales in November fell 2.5% from the previous month and 2.4% from November 2022. This is not only a larger-than-expected decline, but the largest since April 2022, which marks a turnaround after the 1.1% increase in October. A comparison of Italy’s accounts with those of Germany can and should be made. In 2023, inflation in Italy should close at 5.7% against 5.9% in Germany.
According to the Federal Statistics Agency, the harmonized index of consumer prices will increase by 6% in the year just ended compared to 5.9% in Italy according to Istat. The difference only for the month of December is more visible: +3.1% in Italy against 3.7% in the Federal Republic. More important than inflation is the growth rate.
In early December, Istat estimated that 2023 would end with an annual GDP growth of 0.7%: certainly not an Asian tiger leap, but definitely better than the -0.3% diagnosed last January 2 for Germany from the Institute for Macroeconomic and Economic Research (Imk) in Düsseldorf.
Already in December, the Bundesbank had predicted that the year would end in a technical recession, mainly due to the slowdown in industry, hindered by the lack of vitality in international trade, but above all by the high price of energy, and the sector construction aggravated by the monetary tightening imposed by the ECB in Frankfurt. The hope of observers was that the private sector would make up for it with a rebound in demand. This did not happen and today the German economy is “leaking”. And the debt to GDP ratio in Germany is about 64%.
