Germany defies global slowdown in 2015 with 1.7% GDP growth

Frankfurt

GERMAN economic growth accelerated in 2015 as record employment and expansionary monetary policy fuelled domestic consumption at a time of weakening global trade.

Gross domestic product (GDP) rose 1.7 per cent after a gain of 1.6 per cent in 2014, the Federal Statistics Office said at a press conference in Berlin on Thursday. That's in line with the median of 21 estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The government had a fiscal surplus of 0.5 per cent of GDP last year.