Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a staunchly Catholic conservative career politician, was elected leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats on Friday. As the successor of Angela Merkel, Kramp-Karrenbauer is widely tipped to become the next German chancellor, although that is not a done deal just yet.
Staying with Germany, industrial production dropped to -0.5% in October against an expectation of a 0.3% rise. It is the first monthly drop in industrial production since July, as output decline for consumer goods, energy and construction. The quarterly and annual employment change figures came in as expected, at 0.2% and 1.3% respectively, while the third estimate of the eurozone’s GDP growth rate for the third quarter of 2018 dropped to 0.2% on a quarterly basis (from 0.4% the previous quarter), and 1.6% on an annual basis (from 2.2% the previous year). This was slightly below expectations of 1.7%.
Today kicks off with the German balance of trade figures for October. Last time around, there was a surplus of €18.4 billion so it will be interesting to see what has happened since then, especially in light of the recent trade war turmoil that the eurozone has been experiencing. Tomorrow sees the ZEW economic sentiment index for December which has been extremely poor in recent months.
