IMF quite concerned about economic slowdown in Germany
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund is quite concerned about the economic slowdown in Germany, because it points to slower economic growth in the euro zone as a whole, IMF European Department Deputy Director Mahmood Pradhan said on Friday.
The German economy contracted 0.2 percent quarter-on-quarter in the April-June period.
"We are quite concerned about the slowdown in Germany. We have revised down our forecasts. The second quarter negative number has been followed by a number of soft indicators that point to a further weakening in Germany and I think this underlines the general point that the euro area recovery looks much weaker than anticipated last spring," Pradhan said.
The IMF revised its growth forecast for the 18 countries using the euro for this year to 0.8 percent this week from 1.2 percent forecast in April.
(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Tim Ahmann)
