German GDP fell more than forecast in Q2 - Destatis

According to the report from Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the gross domestic product (GDP) fell a price-, seasonally and calendar-adjusted 10.1% on the first quarter of 2020. Economists had expected a 9.0% decrease. This was the largest decline since the beginning of quarterly GDP calculations for Germany in 1970. It was much larger than during the financial market and economic crisis (-4.7% in first quarter of 2009). Destatis also reports that in the second quarter of 2020 a massive slump was recorded for exports and imports of goods and services as well as for household final consumption expenditure and capital formation in machinery and equipment. General government, however, raised its final consumption expenditure during the crisis.

The German economy slumped also in a year-on-year comparison. The GDP in the second quarter of 2020 was down a price-adjusted 11.7% (also calendar-adjusted) on a year earlier. Again, such large decreases had not been observed even during the financial market and economic crisis of 2008/2009. The largest decrease on the same quarter of the preceding year had been recorded in the second quarter of 2009 (-7.9%).

In addition to calculating first data for the second quarter of 2020, the Federal Statistical Office reviewed the results published earlier and included new statistical information in the calculations (as from 2015), as usual. This resulted in changes of up to 0.4 percentage points of the gross domestic product data published so far.