Germany exported a record amount of goods in January, but there is mounting evidence that a growing recovery will profit less strongly from net trade than in the past.
The Federal Statistics Office said today that in seasonally adjusted terms, exports rose by 3.3 per cent month-on-month to a record €69.7 billion, with imports climbing 3 per cent to €57.8 billion, also a new high.
This yielded a trade surplus of €11.9 billion, which was lower than expected.
DZ Bank economist Bernd Weidensteiner said the figures testified to the strength of German firms on the global market, but also that domestic demand was strengthening.
Confidence has increased about Germany's prospects for this year, with the Kiel-based Ifw institute raising its 2006 growth forecast by 0.5 percentage points to 2.1 per cent.
Though industrial output was held back by poor weather in January, manufacturing orders rose strongly and economists say Europe's largest economy is heading for a strong pick-up in the first quarter after stagnating at the end of 2005.
A breakdown of the trade data showed that Germany, the world's biggest exporter of goods in 2005, had increased exports by 13.3 per cent in comparison to January 2005.
Annual import growth was 18.7 per cent, with imports from outside the European Union rising by 27.5 per cent. Separately, the Office said that annual German inflation, measured both by the national and the EU-harmonised gauges, held steady at 2.1 per cent in February.