Press release No. 184 of 15 May 2019

Gross domestic product, 1^st quarter of 2019
+0.4% on the previous quarter (price-, seasonally and calendar-adjusted)
+0.6% on the same quarter a year earlier (price-adjusted)
+0.7% on the same quarter a year earlier (price- and calendar-adjusted)

WIESBADEN - In the first quarter of 2019, the gross domestic product (GDP) in Germany rose by 0.4% on the fourth quarter of 2018 after adjustment for price, seasonal and calendar variations. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that the German economic performance had declined slightly in the third quarter of 2018 (-0.2%) and stagnated in the fourth quarter of 2018 (0.0%).

The quarter-on-quarter comparison (price-, seasonally and calendar-adjusted) shows that positive contributions mainly came from domestic demand, according to provisional calculations. In the first quarter of 2019, fixed capital formation in construction and in machinery and equipment increased considerably compared with the fourth quarter of 2018. Household final consumption expenditure, too, increased substantially on the previous quarter. However, government final consumption expenditure recorded a decline. There were mixed signals regarding foreign trade; both exports and imports increased compared with the previous quarter.

Compared with a year earlier, the price-adjusted GDP rose by 0.6% (calendar-adjusted: 0.7 %) in the first quarter of 2019, following increases of 0.9% (calendar-adjusted: 0.6%) in the fourth and 1.1% (calendar-adjusted: 1.1%) in the third quarter of 2018.

The economic performance in the first quarter of 2019 was achieved by 44.9 million persons in employment, which was an increase of 481,000, or 1.1%, on a year earlier.

In addition to calculating first data for the first quarter of 2019, the Federal Statistical Office also reviewed the national accounting results published for the individual quarters and the year 2018 and, where necessary, incorporated new statistical information in the calculation of results. This did not result in any changes of the gross domestic product data published so far.

Gross domestic product, Price-adjusted, chain-linked ¹

		Unadjusted figures		Figures according to Census X-12-ARIMA
				Seasonally and calendar-adjusted		Calendar-adjusted 2		Calendar-effect
		2010 = 100	%3	2010 = 100	%4	2010 = 100	%3	%3
1 As prices are adjusted on the basis of a changing price base (price base of the previous year), the index values of the previous period are updated to the previous period using the price adjusted change rates (chain-linking). 2 For years the calendar-adjusted values are identical with the seasonally and calendar-adjusted values (except for differences due to rounding). 3 Change on the previous year or the same quarter of the preceding year in %. 4 Change on the previous year or previous quarter in %. qtr = quarter
2018		115.28	1.4	115.44	1.5	115.44	1.5	-0.0
2018	1st qtr	114.95	1.4	115.16	0.4	114.97	2.1	-0.7
	2nd qtr	115.09	2.3	115.68	0.5	114.98	2.0	0.4
	3rd qtr	116.77	1.1	115.45	-0.2	117.24	1.1	-0.0
	4th qtr	114.30	0.9	115.47	0.0	114.56	0.6	0.3
2019	1st qtr	115.65	0.6	115.96	0.4	115.79	0.7	-0.1

Gross domestic product at current prices

		Unadjusted figures		Seasonally and calendar-adjusted figures according to Census X-12-ARIMA
		EUR billion	Change in %1	EUR billion	Change in %2
1 Change on the previous year or the same quarter of the preceding year. 2 Change on the previous year or previous quarter. qtr = quarter
2018		3,386.000	3.3	3,390.740	3.3
2018	1st qtr	828.980	3.2	837.944	0.7
	2nd qtr	842.860	4.2	847.652	1.2
	3rd qtr	858.380	3.0	851.231	0.4
	4th qtr	855.780	2.9	853.913	0.3
2019	1st qtr	851.510	2.7	861.744	0.9

More detailed results for the first quarter of 2019 will be released by the Federal Statistical Office on 23 May 2019. At that time, the results in the new interactive national accounts dashboard (only in german) will be updated, too.

A long time series with quarterly results on the gross domestic product starting with the first quarter of 1970 is available here.