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November 13, 2008 19:08 IST
Becoming the latest recession victim in the developed part of the world, German economy shrank by 0.5 per cent in the third quarter of this year, its government figures revealed on Thursday.
This is the second straight quarter of decline in Germany's economic size or gross domestic product after a 0.4 per cent fall in the previous quarter.
An economy is officially considered to be in recession after two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
"The declining trend of the German economy which had become apparent continued in the third quarter of 2008," Federal Statistical Office said.
The data ascertaining recession in Germany comes a day after the British central bank admitting that the UK economy was in recession and would shrink by two per cent over the next year.
Economists have also warned of recession to continue in the world's largest economy--the US--at least till the first half of the next year.
International Monetary Fund said in one of its recent reports that the US economy would shrink in the current quarter as well as in the first two quarters of the next year, which could be followed by a gradual recovery thereafter.
In Germany, the FSO data showed on Thursday that fall in exports adversely impacted the GDP size, which fell by 0.5 per cent in the third quarter from its previous quarter levels.
"As imports recorded a considerable increase and exports saw a decline, the balance of exports and imports had a negative impact on the development of the gross domestic product," it noted.
In the first quarter of this year, the economic performance was up 1.4 per cent while it was down by 0.4 per cent in the second quarter.
"The declining trend of the German economy which had become apparent continued in the third quarter of 2008," FSO said.
GDP measures the value of the economic performance in the domestic territory.
"The quarter-on-quarter comparison of price, seasonally and calendar-adjusted data revealed positive contributions mainly due to a slight increase in the final consumption expenditure of households and government and to increasing inventories to growth in the third quarter of 2008," FSO said.
The price-adjusted GDP climbed 1.3 per cent and the calendar-adjusted GDP 0.8 per cent in the third quarter compared with the same quarter a year ago.
This rather significant difference was due to the fact that the quarter under review had one more working day compared to the third quarter of 2007.
The statistical office will release more detailed results on November 25.
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