On the occasion of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's visit to China, we are familiar with the "old friend" and vice president of the CDU. Jens Spahn, the former Federal Minister of Health, also visited China.
Span, deputy chairman of the Bundestag group on economic policy, accused Scholz (SPD) of not developing a clear strategy for dealing with China. The CDU politician said: "In good conscience, we cannot hand over our China policy to this traffic light and to this chancellor. ”
Spann began a five-day stay in China on Monday. He hopes to speak with representatives of Chinese politics, business, media and civil society, and in addition to Beijing, he wants to visit Qingdao, a city on China's eastern coast.
"China is closely following the German economic crisis. China values us because of our economic strength. Spann continued: "Germany's situation as an industrial base has never been worse. That's why we desperately need economic recovery. Sovereignty comes from our own strength, not from demarcation and decoupling", the CDU politician criticized Scholz.
On Tuesday, shortly before a meeting between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Chinese leaders, BMW and Mercedes-Benz spoke out against the EU's trade dispute with China. "As an exporter, what we can't do is increase trade barriers," Mercedes boss Ole Källenius said in an interview with ARD Tagesschau, referring to the EU's investigation into whether there is unfair competition in China's electric vehicles.
"The best protection is to stay competitive. If you start putting up trade barriers, first one and then another, then you're going in the wrong direction," Kang described China as an opportunity rather than a risk. In response to Scholz's visit to China, he said, "German-Chinese economic relations need to be maintained not only but expanded. Exiting such a large market is not an option, but we are expanding our position," he said of the company's strategy in China.
BMW CEO Oliver Zipse made a similar statement. "We actually see more opportunities than risks", he told ARD Tagesschau. He also expressed skepticism about the EU's testing of electric vehicles in China. "We don't feel threatened. This time, we should also not exaggerate the fear of foreign manufacturers. We are confident that we can compete. He said.
Maximilian Butek, executive director of the German Chamber of Commerce in East China, said that China's relatively strong growth this year is due to the expansion of new industries, and a large amount of money is flowing in. "In China, the focus is on expanding the industry, especially in products such as chips and electric vehicles. ”
Yes, China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 5.3% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, despite the continued weakness of the German economy. This means that China's economic growth in the first quarter significantly exceeded expectations. Why did the German media and German companies in China not question this data? Because the economists had previously predicted a 4.6% growth rate in the first quarter for China, which was generally positive.
There are good and bad. Let's take a look at the recent report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which showed another downward revision of Germany's growth forecast. Other countries have fared much better economically, despite the crisis.
In its World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has again lowered its growth forecast for Germany in 2024 compared to its forecast in January: experts expect growth of 0.2% instead of 0.5%.
"Germany's pace of recovery in 2024 and 2025 will be revised down by 0.3 percentage points as consumer confidence remains weak," the expert from the UN's Special Body for Financial Stability wrote. "They now expect GDP growth of 1.3% in 2025.
In its annual economic report in February, the federal government mentioned an expectation of annual economic growth of 0.2% in 2024. However, Germany's leading economic research institute even lowered its forecast to 0.1% in a joint diagnosis at the end of March. From worse to worse, it fell another 0.1%.
In its World Economic Outlook, the IMF not only confirms Germany's bleak growth prospects, but above all, it provides international cross-sectional comparisons. It is clear that, despite the global crisis, the situation is improving elsewhere. Among the major industrial countries, only neighbouring France was also worse, down 0.3 percentage points from January's estimate.
IMF experts are more optimistic about the United States than in January, expecting economic growth of 2.7% this year, an increase of 0.6 percentage points compared to January. They are now also more bullish on Brazil (+0.5), Spain (+0.4) and India (0.3). The IMF kept its forecasts for China, Japan and Italy unchanged.