The falling number of infections and the associated relaxation of the corona restrictions gave the German economy a strong boost in the spring.

After the gross domestic product (GDP) shrank significantly after the weak year 2020 at the beginning of the year due to the renewed lockdown, GDP grew by 1.5 percent in the months from April to June compared to the previous quarter.

This was announced by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden on Friday after a flash estimate.

Johannes Pennekamp

Responsible editor for economic reporting, responsible for “Die Lounge”.

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Consumers who went to restaurants more often and increased their consumption were particularly helpful.

The GFK consumer climate index rose significantly in the spring, and online reservations in restaurants in June were even 6 percent higher than in June in the pre-crisis year 2019. But other important economic sectors also developed well.

The mood in the industry, which had already come through the crisis well, continued to brighten. However, more and more supply bottlenecks for electronic chips and other intermediate products are becoming noticeable in the automotive industry and other production areas, which is making the upswing more difficult. "The manufacturing industry has disappointed, but the music played in the service sectors in the past quarter, which recovered strongly after long pandemic-related restrictions," commented Fritzi Köhler-Geib, chief economist at KfW.

The industry association BDI was relatively cautious: The current good situation in the German economy should not hide the threat of economic risks.

"The global fourth corona wave and ongoing delivery problems for primary products threaten to endanger the still intact German and European economic recovery in the second half of the year," said BDI Managing Director Joachim Lang.

In particular, scarce intermediate goods remained a problem for German industry in the medium term.

Will it be back to pre-crisis levels soon?

Despite these restrictions, the latest figures show that the German economy is continuing its race to catch up, which started last year but was then interrupted. The Bundesbank expects the gross domestic product to reach its pre-crisis level in the current third quarter. In its current monthly report, however, it restricts that this will only succeed if the pandemic "does not lead to any significant setbacks and the supply bottlenecks in the industry at least gradually ease". According to the Federal Statistical Office, economic output at the end of June was 3.4 percent below the pre-crisis level.