As reported by Germany's Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the German economy suffered a dip towards the end of 2012. The country's price, season and calendar adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) in the fourth quarter of 2012 decreased by 0.6 percent compared to the previous quarter. Compared with the same quarter a year earlier, the price-adjusted GDP was 0.1 percent higher in the fourth quarter of 2012.

The German economy grew on quarter-on-quarter basis in each of the first three quarters of 2012 (by 0.5 percent, 0.3 percent and 0.2 percent respectively), indicating a slowdown in growth. Destatis also reports an increase of 0.7 percent for the whole of 2012 as a result (0.9 percent in calendar-adjusted terms), in line with the preliminary calculation made in January this year. On the other hand, the 0.7 percent growth in German economy in 2012 remained far below the three percent year-on-year growth recorded in 2011 and 4.2 percent year-on-year growth recorded in 2010.

Destatis said that the quarter-on-quarter decline of the gross domestic product at the end of 2012 was mainly due to a relative weakening of German foreign trade: in the final quarter of 2012, exports of goods went down much more than imports of goods. Meanwhile, in the fourth quarter household and government final consumption expenditure went up slightly compared to the third quarter. In contrast, in the last quarter of the year gross fixed capital formation in construction decreased a little and gross fixed capital formation in machinery and equipment was down markedly on the third quarter of 2012.