The sentiment among large German companies remained stable at 87.6 points, according to the January edition of the monthly Ifo index. Some analysts had predicted a slight recovery, but overall the number remained unchanged. Ifo Institute President Clemens Fuest stated, \u201cThe assessments of the situation have improved slightly, while expectations have been revised slightly downwards. The German economy is starting the new year with little momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
The German economy has struggled in recent years, with only marginal GDP growth of 0.2% in 2025 and marginal negative growth figures in the previous two years. Chancellor Friedrich Merz named improving the situation as a central goal for 2026 in his New Year’s speech.<\/p>\n
The Ifo index had risen \u201cstrongly\u201d in the particularly hard-hit manufacturing sector. Companies assessed the current business situation more positively, and their expectations were also significantly less pessimistic. However, capacity utilization fell from 78.1 to 77.5%, remaining below the long-term average of 83.2%.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the institute noted a deterioration in the climate in the services sector, both in terms of the current situation and the perceived prospects. The climate also cooled noticeably in tourism. The trade and construction specific indices rose, with both retail and wholesale trade recovering, but remaining \u201cwell below their long-term average.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the first quarter of 2026, the central bank expects slow growth to continue. Economists are forecasting growth of 1% for the year as a whole. The German economy is expected to continue facing challenges, with the manufacturing sector showing some signs of improvement, but the services sector weakening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
German Economy Starts New Year with Little Momentum The sentiment among large German companies remained stable at 87.6 points, according to the January edition of the monthly Ifo index. Some analysts had predicted a slight recovery, but overall the number remained unchanged. Ifo Institute President Clemens Fuest stated, \u201cThe assessments of the situation have improved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[22957,516,22956,8338,653],"class_list":{"0":"post-30104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-capacity-utilization","9":"tag-central-bank","10":"tag-clemens-fuest","11":"tag-friedrich-merz","12":"tag-nazi-germany"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30106,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30104\/revisions\/30106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanamedia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}