Weak consumer demand was the main reason for the economic stagnation in Germany at the end of last year, the federal statistics office Destatis said as it provided a breakdown of preliminary fourth-quarter growth data originally released last week.
German gross domestic product (GDP) stagnated in the last three months of 2005, after expanding by 0.6% in the preceding three months, Destatis said in a statement.
As in previous years, weak domestic demand was once again the Achilles heel of recovery of the euro zone's biggest economy, with private consumption declining by 0.6% in the period from October to December, the statisticians calculated.
Public-sector spending also declined by 1.6% quarter-on-quarter. At the same time, net foreign trade knocked 0.2-percentage points off growth as imports grew faster than exports.
The only positive impulses came from investment, with investment in equipment rising by 0.1% and investment in construction up 1.2%, Destatis said.
