Germany’s outward foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks fell by €10 billion to €1,376 billion in 2020. This decline was mainly due to negative exchange rate effects, which led to a lower valuation of the stocks, a Bundesbank press release on these figures explains. The same period saw stocks of FDI in Germany increase by €39 billion to €845 billion.

Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel has spoken out in favour of not waiting too much longer to proceed with the next steps towards a normalisation of monetary policy. “The era of negative interest rates should come to an end soon,” stated Mr Nagel, speaking at an event organised by the German daily newspaper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.