BERLIN, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- Germany's central bank Bundesbank is not expecting the German economy to pick up during summer, the Bundesbank announced in its monthly report for August published on Monday.
"The German economy is likely to remain weak in the summer of 2019," the German central bank stated, adding that the "overall economic output could decline slightly again".
Last week, Germany's Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) already announced that the German economy shrank by 0.1 percent in the second quarter of 2019 compared to the previous quarter.
According to the Bundesbank, the negative outlook for the German economy was caused by a "continued downturn in the industrial sector" in the third quarter.
Based on "currently available data", the Bundesbank expects production of German companies in the industrial sector to "shrink noticeably".
In July, the German Institute for Economic Research (Ifo) recorded the strongest decline in the institute's monthly index for production since February 2009 and described the index as in "free fall".
Like the Bundesbank, Ifo is not hoping for a quick turnaround of the German economy and stated that "no improvement is expected in the short term, as businesses are looking ahead to the next six months with more pessimism".
Amidst the bad news, the Bundesbank pointed out that the German economy was bolstered by "sectors with a stronger domestic orientation" which would have been able to "elude the downward pull".
Especially the German construction sector would "presumably" continue its economic boom, according to the German central bank.
However, the economic weakness, which had been around for one year, would have "left its mark on the German labor market in spring" as employment grew significantly slower than in the preceding quarters.
It would remain to see "whether exports and thus the industrial sector will recover" before Germany's domestic economy "will be impacted to a greater extent", the German central bank stated.
