German economy shrank more than expected by 0.4% in fourth quarter of 2022

The German economy shrank by 0.4 per cent in last year's fourth quarter, the national statistics office said Friday, a sharp downward revision from its initial report that gross domestic product declined by 0.2 per cent.

The quarter-on-quarter contraction in the October-December period was the first since the first quarter of 2021.

Consumer spending, which propped up growth in the first nine months of last year, dropped by 1 per cent in the final three months of 2022.

Investment in construction and machinery showed bigger drops in the final quarter, the Federal Statistical Office said.

The full-year 2022 growth figure for Germany Europe's biggest economy remained at the 1.8 per cent that the office reported at the end of January.

The economy has generally held up well, despite pressure from high inflation and fears last year of an energy crunch as Russia reduced and then cut off its gas supplies to Germany. That didn't materialise.

On Wednesday, a closely watched survey showed