German FinMin Says Country Needs More Investment But Without Debt

October 20, 2014 Share Print 0

Germany must increase its investment to improve competitiveness – but not at the expense of higher debt, finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said.

His comments, in a newspaper interview on Sunday, follow a raft of economic evidence that shows Europe’s most important economy is slowing down.

Last week financial markets had a torrid time, partly rattled by the sight of a weakening German economy.

Mr Schaeuble is under pressure to boost infrastructure spending.

The list of potential projects includes roads, railways, and energy and broadband networks.

In the interview with the Welt am Sonntag, Mr Schaeuble said criticism that the government was not spending enough was justified, but that it was trying to alter that.

“We must invest more and improve our competitiveness. We must get to work on this – quickly and in a concrete way,” he said.

Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is now expected to grow by just 1.2% this year, rather than 1.8%, with growth of 1.3% in 2015, down from a previous estimate of 2%.

via BBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.