Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Be thankful our economy isn’t shaped like Germany’s

This is no time for schadenfreude — but take comfort from the fact that the UK isn’t built like Germany. Being a world-leading exporter of manufactured goods — which they are and we’re not — is all very well until orders from China fade, Donald Trump adds you to his list of trade foes, your flagship car industry goes into spasm, and even the mystic waters of the Rhine get in on the act by falling to levels that impede the movement of cargo. Now the German economy is close to recession, with falling factory orders and a Purchasing Managers’ Index for manufacturing (in which results below 50 indicate contraction) of 44.7, its lowest since 2012. Consensus 2019 growth forecasts have dropped to 1 per cent, and some pundits expect much worse.

Since Germany accounts for three tenths of eurozone economic activity, none of this will help demand for UK goods and services under whatever cross-Channel tariff regime may soon apply. But at least German business recognises our value as a trade partner, the UK economy being equal to the 19 smallest EU members put together — as does the eurosceptic AfD party, whose leader Alice Weidel recently told the Bundestag: ‘This Brexit will be costly for the EU which means costly for German taxpayers… It is clearly in Germany’s interest that trade and investment continue unhindered.’ If at one minute to midnight a renegotiation based on German economic self-defence were to prevail over the French urge to punish us, perhaps something sensible might be salvaged from the Brexit wreckage.

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Trade associations are even better journalistic sources than talkative taxi drivers. If you want to know what’s happening in the economy of physical goods, consult a conclave of forklift truck operators; for a barometer of optimism among middle-class homeowners, mingle with managers of the nation’s garden centres.

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