Finance

Home page

Finance

German economy grew 3% in 2011 before slump

11 January 2012 12:10 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. Germany grew by a robust 3.0 percent last year but the debt crisis brought Europe’s biggest economy almost to a halt in the final months, official data showed Wednesday, AFP reported.

German gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 3.0 percent in 2011, compared with record growth of 3.7 percent the previous year, the national statistics office Destatis calculated.

The strong performance enabled Europe’s economic powerhouse to bring down its public deficit -- the shortfall between government spending and income -- to just 1.0 percent of GDP last year from 4.3 percent in 2010.

That is the first time since 2008 that the German deficit ratio has been below the European Union’s ceiling of 3.0 percent.