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(CEP News) Frankfurt - Germany's economy is expected to grow at 1.9% in 2008 before slowing to a growth rate of 0.5%, according to a revised DIHK Chambers of Industry and Commerce estimate released on Thursday. The forecasts are based on the survey results from approximately 25,000 businesses received between September and October.
Both 2008 and 2009's forecasts were revised down from initial estimates of 2.3% and 1.2%, respectively. "No doubt, companies' expectations are clearly muted," DIHK's managing director Martin Wansleben said in a statement. "The positive business situation that we had is suffering more and more knocks." Meanwhile, the German government has also revised down its forecasts for growth in 2009 to 0.2% from the 1.2% initially expected. "We're seeing the first brake marks in the economy, even when you don't take into account what's happening in financial markets," German Economy Minister Michael Glos said to reporters in Berlin on Thursday. "Unlike in past years, to a certain degree foreign trade will fail to be an engine of growth." Earlier in the month, German leading economic institutes had published forecasts also suggesting that economic growth in Germany would be modest, at best, next year. In a government-commissioned review published twice a year, the institutes said that Germany "is on the edge of a recession" and "is particularly hard hit as the financial crisis deepens since investment depends on exports." By Todd Wailoo,
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