2011 saw a continuation of the trend towards building up multinational groups by way of holding companies.

The emerging market economies have grown significantly over the past 20 years, increasingly becoming the engine fuelling global growth. Recently, however, economic momentum in China, Russia and other countries has tailed off considerably. In the July Monthly Report, the Bundesbank's economists look into the drivers behind this development.

In its latest Monthly Report, the Bundesbank presents a detailed outlook for the German economy in 2015 and 2016, which was already published at the beginning of June. Additional focus lies on new instruments for measuring inflation expectations as well as on marketable financial instruments of banks and their role as collateral in the Eurosystem.

The German economy has picked up momentum. Aggregate output is expanding at a faster pace again after an interruption due to the escalation of the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area. The driving forces are changing, however. While external impulses had the upper hand following the economic and financial crisis, domestic economic activity has come to fore recently.

Germany's net external position stood at €1,476 billion at the end of 2015, and thus amounted to around 49 % of gross domestic product. The German net external asset position rose by €302 billion year-on-year.