Economic Outlook

According to the Joint Economic Forecast, Germany's gross domestic product declines by 0.6% in 2023. This is a strong downward revision of 0.9 percentage points from the forecast made in spring 2023. "The most important reason for this revision is that industry and private consumption are recovering more slowly than we expected in spring," says Oliver Holtemöller, Vice President and Head of the Macroeconomics Department at the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).

A comparison of apartment price trends by year of construction in Germany's largest cities reveals a notable pattern: While prices for new buildings have experienced a relatively modest decline from their peak, the value of existing properties has fallen by more than twice as much. This finding comes from a comprehensive data analysis conducted by the German Real Estate Index (Greix), a project of ECONtribute and the Kiel Institute. In cooperation with local real estate expert committees, transaction prices of German residential real estate are tracked using state-of-the-art scientific methods. All data for 18 German cities and their suburbs are freely available at www.greix.de.

In August, global trade shows a clear countermovement to the weak summer months. The values of the Kiel Trade Indicator for global trade and also for the trade of major economies are all positive and, in some cases, show significant increases compared with the previous month of July (adjusted for price and seasonal effects). In Russia's ports, the number of container ships arriving is surging and, despite sanctions and a weak ruble, is almost at the level seen before the outbreak of the war. The congestion off the Panama Canal has only minor importance for global goods trade.