German GDP contracts less than expected in Q3

The German economy shrunk less than expected in the third quarter, figures from the federal statistics office Destatis revealed on Monday.

Gross domestic product declined by 0.1% after increasing by a revised 0.1% in the second quarter. The initial estimate pointed to no growth in the second quarter.

The data will come as a surprise to economists who had forecast a contraction of 0.3%.

Compared with a year earlier, GDP was 0.3% lower than the third quarter of 2022, when adjusted for price and calendar variations given there was one working day less than the same period of 2022.

This was worse than the 0% annual change in the second quarter but better than the 0.7% contraction expected.