The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the European Central Bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank and the Banque de France have opened the BIS Innovation Hub Eurosystem Centre next week in Frankfurt am Main and Paris. The ceremony was streamed live on Tuesday, 28 March 2023. Speakers included Agustín Carstens, General Manager of the BIS; Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB; François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Banque de France; and Joachim Nagel, President of the Deutsche Bundesbank. 

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance and Federal Ministry of Education and Research have launched an initiative aimed at strengthening financial education. Bundesbank Executive Board member Burkhard Balz, attending the kick-off event on 23 March in Berlin, expressed his strong support for this initiative.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel called for a further increase in euro area interest rates, saying, “if we are to tame this stubborn inflation, we will have to be even more stubborn”. Our fight against inflation isn’t over yet, he noted, while stressing that interest rates are approaching restrictive territory. 

The Bundesbank expects economic output in Germany to decline again in the first quarter of 2023. Although output in industry and construction expanded significantly again in January, exports of goods recovered only partially in price-adjusted terms. In addition, consumer-related sectors continue to suffer from the persistently high level of inflation. Core inflation once again matched the all-time high of December 2022. Despite the current weak economy, the outlook for the labour market remains positive.

Is digitalisation increasing aggregate labour productivity? And if so, to what extent? The Bundesbank’s experts explore these questions in the current issue of the Monthly Report by studying developments in the four largest euro area countries and the United States between 1997 and 2018. They find that productivity effects emanating from the digital sectors are very strong, with input-output linkages between economic sectors playing an important role. 

2022 saw Germany’s current account surplus drop by €116 billion to €162 billion. In relation to nominal gross domestic product (GDP), it fell by 3½ percentage points to 4¼%. This represents the largest decline since German reunification and the lowest figure since 2003. 

The monetary policy turnaround shaped the Bundesbank’s balance sheet last year. The profit and loss account for 2022 reported a distributable profit of zero. This result was achieved by tapping €1 billion worth of risk provisions. As in the previous years, no profit was transferred to the Federal budget. “The Bundesbank sustained exceptional financial burdens in 2022,” Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel said at the joint press conference with Executive Board member Joachim Wuermeling.

The current issue of the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report reports that German economic output was lower in the fourth quarter of 2022 than in the previous quarter. According to the Federal Statistical Office’s flash estimate, real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased by 0.2% on the quarter after seasonal adjustment. The Bundesbank’s experts are expecting yet another fall in economic output in the first quarter of 2023. The inflation rate is expected to continue to decline in the coming months, but underlying price pressure will remain high.

According to the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report, the rise in financing costs and high inflation had a strong impact on the German housing market. Prices for residential real estate continued to rise up until the middle of 2022, but in the second half of the year fell quite significantly for the first time in a long time. By contrast, price pressures came from the massive increase in construction prices and the slow pace of the expansion of housing supply. Residential real estate in Germany continued to be overvalued on an annual average overall.

In his speech at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel highlighted the importance of the European single market. He said that it was truly a source of prosperity and could help to more effectively overcome future challenges. He called for greater efforts to deepen the integration of the single market, particularly in the areas of services, digitalisation, and the capital market. Furthermore, he stressed that credible fiscal rules were essential for monetary union.