Economics
Germany Feels the Trade-War Heat as Economic Outlook Slashed
- Top German institutes cut 2018 growth forecast to 1.7% vs 2.2%
- Risks include disorderly Brexit, Italy debt crisis, trade
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German economic growth is being held back by restraints at home and abroad, including rising protectionism that’s creating uncertainty about the global outlook, according to five of the nation’s leading research institutes.
In a report for the German government, the institutes cut their 2018 growth prediction to 1.7 percent from 2.2 percent. That’s below the consensus in Bloomberg’s monthly survey and would mark the weakest performance since 2015. The prediction for next year was trimmed to 1.9 percent from 2 percent.