German Economy Sputters as VW, Siemens Invest Abroad (Update1)
Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Germany, the world's third-biggest economy, can no longer rely on exports to fuel spending at home, prompting economists to lower their growth forecasts for next year to as low as 1 percent.
A year-long export boom ended in the third quarter and investment and spending didn't rise enough to make up the difference, dragging the pace of growth to the slowest in more than a year. Investments in Germany are weakening as companies including Volkswagen AG, Europe's biggest carmaker, use their profits to build factories and hire outside their home market.
``The link between exports, investment and consumption is getting weaker,'' said Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Munich- based Ifo institute, who coined the term ``bazaar economy'' to describe the transfer of large parts of Germany's industry production to lower-wage countries. ``I'm afraid the period of stagnation will continue for some years to come.''
The International Monetary Fund on Nov. 2 cut its 2005 estimate to 1.5 percent for next year, the slowest rate of expansion it predicts for any of the Group of Seven nations.
Germany dragged down the pace of growth in the economy of the 12 nations sharing the euro to a quarterly 0.3 percent in the third quarter, prompting the European Commission on Nov. 12 to lower its estimate for the current quarter. The U.S. economy expanded 0.9 percent on a comparable basis in the period.
Burden for Euro Region
Average German growth rates during the last 30 years have dropped every decade, to 1.9 percent during the 1990s from 2.8 percent in the 1970s. In the U.S., the average rate of expansion has held steady at around 3.3 percent during that period. Over the past three years, the pace of expansion averaged just 0.3 percent in Germany, compared with 1.9 percent in the U.S.
``Germany's weakness is a burden for the euro region,'' said Thomas Mayer, head of European economics at Deutsche Bank AG in London, in a telephone interview.
Companies including Wolfsburg-based Volkswagen and Hanover- based Continental AG, the world's fourth-largest tiremaker, are investing in factories abroad to keep up with rising export demand, while freezing or cutting wages at home. At least 24 of the 30 companies that are members of the benchmark DAX stock index are now employing a bigger share of their workforce abroad than they did 10 years ago, annual reports show.
With unemployment at a five-year high of 10.7 percent, consumer spending may not be able to offset a further slowdown in exports after the euro reached a record on Nov. 18. Consumer spending hasn't risen more than 0.1 percent in almost two years, forcing retailers including KarstadtQuelle AG to cut jobs.
Investment Decline
In Germany, ``growth above 2 percent is not on the horizon, not in the foreseeable future,'' said Mayer of Deutsche Bank, who predicts growth will slow to 1 percent in 2005.
Germany's traditional recovery pattern of export growth boosting investment, then employment and subsequently consumer spending, has been ``clearly disrupted,'' he said.
Investment in equipment hasn't grown more than 1.1 percent since the third quarter of 2000. It dropped nine consecutive quarters between the last quarter of 2000 and the end of 2002, continuing to shrink for a full year after the end of the 2001 recession. By the time investment started to pick up again, Germany was entering its next recession.
To reverse the decline, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government has cut welfare payments, lowered taxes and made it easier for companies to lay off staff. It also proposed moving a public holiday permanently to a Sunday to add what Finance Minister Hans Eichel estimated would be another 0.1 percentage point to the pace of expansion. That plan collapsed within a day amid opposition from his junior coalition partner, the Greens.
DAX Recovery?
Companies have used the threat of layoffs and relocation to win wage concessions from unions. Robert Bosch GmbH, the world's second-largest maker of car parts, and DaimlerChrysler AG, the fifth-biggest automaker, are among German companies that agreed on longer working hours and reductions in wage costs this year.
``We expect more progress on this front to give German companies a competitive edge'' next year, said Lars Kreckel, an equity strategist at ABN Amro Holding NV in London, in a research report. ``Consumers are paying the price and are likely to face another difficult year.''
Germany's benchmark DAX index has lost almost a third of its value in the past five years, compared with a 4 percent drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The DAX is up 4.3 percent this year, reaching a 28-month high during trading on Nov. 19, while the Dow Jones is little changed.
Breaking the Chain
Without exports, Germany's economy wouldn't have grown at all in the first half. A ``strong'' increase in investment and inventories in the third quarter wasn't enough to prevent the pace of growth slowing in the third quarter, the Wiesbaden-based Federal Statistics Office said Nov. 11. Germany will publish a breakdown of third-quarter growth figures tomorrow.
The third quarter ``was the start'' of a domestic recovery, though ``it could be that the start of this chain is already its end,'' said Joachim Fels, a senior economist at Morgan Stanley in London. ``If exports collapse, companies could turn around and say: `I'm not investing after all, at least not here.'''
German growth will slow to 1.4 percent next year from 1.8 percent this year, the government's panel of economic advisers said Nov. 17. Exports will still account for about 90 percent of that growth, said Wolfgang Wiegard, one of the five advisers.
While German companies aren't the only ones moving production to cheaper locations, the shift has a bigger impact on the German economy because industry accounts for 30 percent of gross domestic product, more than in any other major European economy. Services are equivalent to 68 percent of the economy, compared with 72 percent in France and the U.K. and 74 percent in the U.S.
Industry Dependence
``It's easier to weather wage competition from abroad if the service industry is more developed, as it is in France,'' Deutsche Bank's Mayer said. ``Germany has always been very dependent on industry, and that's where increasing competition is particularly painful.''
Investment by German industry declined 2.9 percent in 2003, extending an 11 percent drop in the previous year, the Federal Statistics Office said today.
Detroit-based General Motors on Oct. 14 announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs at its German factories out of a total 12,000 layoffs for all of Europe. Volkswagen's 103,000 German employees agreed to a 28-month wage freeze in order to head off the specter of 30,000 job cuts.
``It's the same wherever you look: nobody's investing in Germany,'' said Heinz-Joachim Neubuerger, chief financial officer of Siemens AG, Germany's largest engineering company, in an interview in Munich. ``That's our national problem.''
Siemens, Adidas
Since 1992, the year that Siemens Chief Executive Officer Heinrich von Pierer took office, Siemens' domestic workforce has declined by about 90,000 employees to 164,000 workers, while the workforce outside Germany has swelled by more than 100,000 people to 266,000 workers. Those changes include acquisitions and divestments, such as the sale of Infineon Technologies AG or the purchase of the Westinghouse turbine business in the U.S.
Adidas-Salomon AG, the world's second-largest maker of sporting goods after Nike Inc., said two weeks ago it will cut 60 of the last 100 jobs remaining for mass manufacturing of shoes in its home market of Germany. The Herzogenaurach-based company will retain some 2,500 jobs in Germany, most of them in administration, out of about 17,000 jobs worldwide.
``Germany hasn't managed the transition to a service economy like the U.S. or the U.K. have,'' said Andreas Scheuerle, an economist at Dekabank in Frankfurt and a former aide to the government's panel of economic advisers. ``We're seeing a change, but only gradually.'' |
