Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said, the gross domestic product (GDP) in the fourth quarter of 2018 remained at the same level as in the previous quarter (0.0%), upon price-, seasonal and calendar-adjustment. Thus there were two different phases of short-term economic development in Germany in 2018. In the first half of 2018, the GDP had increased, by 0.4% in the first quarter and 0.5% in the second quarter. In the third quarter, however, the GDP was down 0.2%. For the whole year of 2018, this was an increase of 1.4% (calendar-adjusted: 1.5%). Hence growth was slightly smaller than reported in January.

The quarter-on-quarter comparison (price-, seasonally and calendar-adjusted) shows that positive contributions to growth came from domestic demand. In the fourth quarter of 2018, gross fixed capital formation, especially in construction (+1.3%) but also in machinery and equipment (+0.7%), increased markedly compared with the third quarter of 2018. Household final consumption expenditure increased slightly (+0.2%), whereas final consumption expenditure of general government grew markedly (+1.6%). However, development of foreign trade did not make a positive contribution to growth in the fourth quarter. According to provisional calculations, exports and imports of goods and services increased by 0.7% each on the previous quarter.

Measured by unadjusted figures, year-on-year economic growth continued to slow. The price-adjusted GDP rose by 0.9% (calendar-adjusted: 0.6%) in the fourth quarter of 2018, following increases of 1.1% (calendar-adjusted: also +1.1%) in the third quarter of 2018, 2.3% (calendar-adjusted: +2.0%) in the second quarter of 2018 and 1.4% in the first quarter of 2018 (calendar-adjusted: +2.1%).