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Both Germany's net exports and industrial production shrank in November 2015, official data showed on Friday, concluding the first week of 2016 which initially saw inspiring employment and consumption figures and reminding people of the fact that Europe's biggest economy's growth force was lopsided.
The increase of German imports outstripped that of exports in November 2015, said German federal statistics office Destatis. Compared with October, exports increased by 0.4 percent in calendar and seasonally adjusted terms, while imports gained 1.6 percent. Net exports, the balance between exports and imports, thus narrowed to 19.7 billion euros (about 21.3 billion U.S. dollars).
Data released on Friday also showed that German industrial output slid by 0.3 percent in November from the previous month when the factory production went up by 0.5 percent.
These readings portrayed a different picture of German economy from what people saw earlier this week when the statistics showed that Germany enjoyed a historically-high employment, record-low jobless rate and the strongest retail sales increase in over 10 years.
"It is not easy to find a common theme for latest German data," said Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING-DiBa bank, "While consumption remains solid, on the back of the strong labour market, low inflation and low interest rates, latest developments are still far from creating exuberance."
Foreign trade was a traditional growth engine of Germany, whose automobiles, engineering equipment and other high-quality products enjoyed strong competitiveness in the international market.
As the world economy yet fully recovered from financial and economic crisis, however, this engine went into a stall in recent years.
"The overall strong domestic economy ensures that imports are growing faster than exports. Although exports are still doing well, net exports will probably no longer be contributing the growth of the economy over the next two years," said Berlin-based German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in a recent report.
Investment, another key force driving economies, also showed no sign of rebound in Germany. According to Destatis, the production of capital goods such as machine and equipment decreased by 3.3 percent in November. In contrast, the output of consumer goods from German factories rose by 1.9 percent.
"The German economy's greatest weakness is the low public and private investment, which is still close to its historic lows despite dynamic consumer demand," said Marcel Fratzscher, DIW President.
"Policy must not lose sight of the urgent need to improve the conditions for investment," he added.
German Engineering Federation (VDMA), an association represents over 3,100 mostly medium-sized companies in the investment goods industry, expected that the production of mechanical engineering sector would see zero growth in both 2015 and 2016.
"Almost one in three mechanical engineering companies is complaining about a lack of orders," said VDMA President Reinhold Festge, "It is with great concern that we are seeing too much 'perceived security' and too little 'preparation for tomorrow' in Germany."
He said it was necessary for the German government "to do something at last", such as to expand the digital infrastructure, create a more flexible labour market, provide tax incentives for research and a trade policy for new markets.
The German Economy Ministry remained optimistic about growth. It expected Germany's gross domestic product to increase by 1.7 percent in 2015 and 1.8 percent in 2016. In 2014, the German economy expanded by 1.6 percent.
On Friday, the ministry said the industry activity would recover in the coming months as new orders surged at the end of last year and business confidence also improved.
A preliminary reading of German 2015 growth was scheduled to be released on January 14th.
"The latest batch of November data suggests a continuation of the recovery in the fourth quarter, albeit at a rather subdued pace," said ING-DiBa's Brzeski, while warning that as concerns about the global economic situation remained, "any shouts of joy about strong German growth should better remain humble."
