According to the data published by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, the country's export and import figures recorded for February fell by more than expected. With the addition of strong winds blowing from overseas markets, the forecasts for Germany's economic growth performance have taken on a pessimistic outlook.
German exporters are having a hard time because of the slowdown in the world economy, commercial disputes and the concerns of Brexit. In the reports published by leading economy institutes in Germany last week include comments that the 2019 growth forecasts were revised in a negative direction and the long-term upward trend in past periods may have come to an end. According to the data released by the Statistics Department, after the calendar adjusted, exports in February fell by 1.3% to the lowest level in the last twelve months, while imports decreased by 1.6%. Germany's foreign trade surplus was announced as € 18.7 billion.
Economists who have previously consulted with Reuters have predicted that exports in Germany would decrease by 0.5%, imports 0.7%, and projected that the surplus could be 18 billion euros.
According to Carsten Brzeski, one of these economists, from the German export sector point of view, there are so many crises in global trade that to defy all of them at the same time is not easy. For example, the trade disputes between the US and China, the concerns about Brexit, the slowdown in the Chinese economy and some specific problems of the developing economies comes to the forefront as factors affecting the foreign trade performance of Germany negatively.