German economy grows at near-record pace

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Bob Moon: Just when worries are setting in over signs of a slowing recovery in the U.S. and China, Germany steps up to buck the global trend. Numbers out today show the German economy is growing at a near-record pace. Is that enough to pick up the slack? As our Europe correspondent Stephen Beard reports from London, don’t count on it just yet.

Stephen Beard: Between April and June, Germany’s GDP jumped by 2.2 percent. That’s the fastest quarterly rate of German growth in more than 20 years. It’s three times faster than growth rate in France.

The main reason for Germany’s success are its exports. The weak euro made German products even more attractive abroad. But Phillip Whyte, who’s with the Center for European Reform, says Germany isn’t helping the global recovery:

Phillip Whyte: So long as Germany relies on foreign demand to grow at all, I think that we can’t rely on Germany to pull the world economy out of its current malaise. What we need in the German economy is for consumers in particular to start spending more than they’ve been doing in recent years.

And buying more foreign products. In other words, he says, the cautious Germans need to throw open their wallets and become more like free-spending Americans.

In London, this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace.