The German economy, Europe's biggest, braved global economic storms to expand 1.5% in 2014, better than the government had expected, a flash estimate showed today.
Germany's public finances were in order too, with the overall public budget showing a surplus equivalent to 0.4% of gross domestic product, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement.
"On the whole, the German economy turned out to be stable on an annual average in 2014," the statement said.
At 1.5%, GDP growth was "above the average of the last 10 years of 1.2%t," the statisticians said. The government had been pencilling in growth of 1.2% for 2014.
The German economy had clocked up only very modest growth of 0.4% in 2012 and a meagre 0.1% in 2013.
"Obviously, the German economy turned out to be strong in a difficult global economic environment, benefiting especially from a strong domestic demand," Destatis chief Roderich Egeler said.
"The economic situation had stabilised towards the end of 2014, following a dynamic start into the year and the subsequent period of weakness last summer," he added.
