‘Crisis is over’ for Germany as economy picks up speed

The Munich-based Ifo thinktank said yesterday its business climate index, based on a monthly survey of some 7,000 firms, rose to 104.2 in January from 102.4 in December.

That beat the median forecast in a Reuters poll of 40 economists for the index to climb to 103.0 and matched the highest estimate in the poll.

The data sent the euro to a fresh 11-month high against the dollar and Bund futures falling.

“The crisis is over. At least in Germany,” said Carsten Brzeski, economist at ING in Brussels. “The contraction in the fourth quarter of 2012 seems to have been short-lived.”

Germany’s economy held up strongly during the first two and a half years of the eurozone debt crisis but sputtered in the second half of 2012 as firms postponed investment and exports suffered due to a gloomy economic outlook in Europe and elsewhere.

The economy shrank by 0.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of the year, the Federal Statistics Office estimated earlier this month. But as concerns fade that the single currency could break apart, and as the economic outlook elsewhere brightens, economists are betting on a return to growth early this year.

“The news situation is good. The financial markets have calmed. German firms are feeling that,” Ifo economist Klaus Wohlrabe said.

Some German firms have already set their eye on other markets to offset weakness in the eurozone.

Firms’ expectations improved for the fourth month running as companies become more hopeful about business this year.

Their views on current conditions also climbed, after falling last month, increasing to a better-than-expected 108.0 from 107.1.

Germany’s rebound is not expected to come with a roar, however and Wohlrabe said Ifo expected first-quarter growth of 0.2 per cent.

The government and Bundesbank expect 2013 growth of 0.4 per cent, at the lower end of economists’ forecasts.

Germany’s central bank said this week that the slump should be short-lived and that Germany’s economy may already have bottomed out, in contrast to the currency bloc as a whole, which is in its second recession in four years.