Germany sees brighter outlook for Europe's largest economy

The economic outlook has brightened in Europe's largest economy

Germany Russia Ukraine War (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The German government on Wednesday said it expects to eke out economic growth this year instead of a decline as Europe's largest economy manages its energy divorce from Russia and shells out support for consumers and businesses hit by higher energy costs.

The outlook improved to an 0.2% expansion from a 0.4% contraction expected in October, when Germany feared that this winter it would run out of natural gas used to power factories, generate electricity and heat homes. Warmer-than-usual weather helped, as did a scramble to line up additional supplies of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, that comes by ship instead of pipeline from Russia.

Russia's state-owned exporter Gazprom has halted all but a trickle of natural gas to Europe as countries support Ukraine during the war. Germany, one of the countries most dependent on Russian natural gas to power its industry, had no reception terminals for LNG at the start of the year. It now has three floating terminals on its northern coast, at a cost of billions of euros.