Peter Altmaier is gearing up for his new life, and the now managing minister of economics is already facing the current perils of the economy. For example, recently he was thinking about getting a car. He didn’t have to deal with the subject for 27 years, after all as a parliamentarian, state secretary or minister you always have someone to drive you. Altmaier’s first explorations led him into the hard reality: “I realized that it is very, very difficult to get a delivery date at all at the moment,” says Altmaier. “Because the automakers are uncertain about when and what quantities of chips will be available in the next year.” And this uncertainty affects not only the future private man Peter Altmaier, but the entire German economy.
On Wednesday, the CDU politician, who surprisingly renounced his parliamentary mandate at the beginning of the month, presented an autumn projection for the presumably last time. The numbers fall short of what the ministry had expected in the spring – also due to missing components such as microchips. “We are experiencing that delivery bottlenecks and high energy prices are dampening economic development,” says Altmaier. The economy will grow by 2.6 percent this year, this forecast is “relatively reliable”. However, it is below the 3.5 percent that the federal government had assumed in the spring. A year earlier, at the beginning of the pandemic, the forecast for 2021 was even a stormy 5.2 percent. But who could have guessed what was still to come?
This time, too, the big upswing should only be delayed a little. “We are assuming that growth will not cease to exist, but will merely shift into the next year,” says Altmaier. A consolidation of energy prices can be expected, and the bottlenecks in deliveries should also ease. Towards the end of the first quarter of 2022, the economy will be back where it was before the start of the Corona crisis – instead of at the turn of the year. 4.1 percent growth is possible next year, half a percentage point more than expected in the spring. After that, in 2023, growth will level off again at 1.6 percent. As in the old days: In 2018, in his first autumn projection as Minister of Economics, Altmaier had predicted stable growth of 1.8 percent. It was then the tenth year of the boom. And the penultimate one.
As always, Altmaier spreads confidence once again. The inflation rate, at an incredible 4.1 percent in September, will level off again at a lower level at the turn of the year – because then the effect that the value-added tax was temporarily reduced in the previous year will also no longer apply. Consumers do not have to worry about the security of gas supply either: “The gas storage tanks are properly filled.” The trades are still doing well, and the situation is easing for many service providers. Only in the industry with its delivery bottlenecks cannot be glossed over at the moment. “The stuttering economic engine must be a wake-up call for the coalition negotiations,” warns BDI Managing Director Joachim Lang. Reforms are needed.
Altmaier himself now has other worries, but he does not reveal which ones exactly. What kind of car he has in mind and what type of drive – he won’t say that until he’s no longer a minister.