Although Germany remains the largest eurozone economy, its economic problems are snowballing. All the difficulties are becoming graver and may balloon into problems that will have a long-lasting effect on the overall situation in the country. Thus, a decline in exports is considered one of such alarming signs.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz blamed Germany's stagnation on the "weakness of a few of our export markets, particularly China," adding: "For an export nation like ours, that has an effect." He also emphasized that high inflation and surging energy prices were also among the key issues to tackle. Olaf Scholz said that at that moment, oil and gas prices two or three times exceeded the ones seen at the end of February 2022, when Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine. The situation is also aggravated by "the lingering disruption that the Covid pandemic had wrought on global supply chains."
However, the politician decided to end the interview on a positive note. Although economic growth in Germany is sluggish, there are some positive factors. In particular, positive trends were recorded in the construction of battery factories, investments in the development of electric vehicles, and semiconductor production. Analysts suppose that at the end of the year, Germany's GDP will decline by 0.3%, while the previous forecast suggested a 0.4% rise by the end of December. The outlook was downgraded because of problems in the industrial sector.