Despite the financial and debt crises, companies in Germany do not expect a recession. Half of businesses are also assuming that next year will see a constant business situation. Around 31 per cent even expect growth in production in 2012, nearly 19 expect a decline. This conclusion was reached by the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft Cologne (IW, or Cologne Institute for Economic Research) in its current autumn growth survey, for which almost 2,600 companies were surveyed in Western and Eastern Germany. When estimating revenue developments the picture is unclear: 27.6 per cent of those surveyed expect higher revenues while 24.5 per cent are assuming declining results. What is interesting here is that companies in Eastern Germany expect better revenues than companies in the former West Germany.

However, businesses’ export outlooks have clouded over more markedly. Admittedly almost 24 per cent of businesses expect their exports to rise and only around 13 per cent expect a fall. But six months earlier companies assessed foreign business considerably more optimistically. Businesses also showed themselves to be somewhat more reserved in their investment plans than in 2010 – currently nearly 30 per cent of companies want to spend more and almost 20 per less on new acquisitions in 2012 than in this year.

Manufacturing industry and the service sector are showing themselves to be particularly keen on investing while the construction sector is tending to assume budget cuts. Luckily the bleaker prospects for growth are hardly having any effect on the employment market: most companies expect stable levels of employment in 2012 and 25 per cent of businesses even want to expand their number of employees next year.