Private consumption drove German growth of 1.5% in 2014

Berlin

PRIVATE consumption and trade fuelled a 1.5 per cent expansion of the German economy in 2014, its best performance in three years but a result which masked weakness in the final three quarters of the year.

"The German economy turned out to be strong in a difficult global economic environment, benefiting especially from a strong domestic demand," Roderich Egeler, president of the statistics office said at a press conference in Berlin on Thursday.