France calls on Germany to hike investment spending
BERLIN: French Economy Minister Michel Sapin has dismissed a US attack on Germany’s trade surplus but urged Europe’s biggest economy to boost its spending on investment.
In an interview trailed by the financial daily Handelsblatt for its Monday edition, Sapin brushed aside US criticism that Germany exploited an ‘undervalued’ euro to fuel its exports.
The attack “very obviously is meaningless,” said Sapin.
But, he added, Germany “could be more ambitious” in investment spending.
“We think that this would be in the interests both of Germans and the eurozone,” said Sapin, who also holds the finance portfolio.
Sapin’s words add to external pressure and to an internal debate in Germany about the country’s trade surplus, which has repeatedly broken records since the 2008-9 financial crisis.
Last Thursday, the federal statistics office Destatis said Germany exported 253 billion euros (US$270 billion) more than it imported in 2016.
Exports added 1.2 per cent to top 1.2 trillion euros, while imports climbed 0.6 per cent to 955 billion euros.
The European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are among those who have called on Germany to boost internal consumption, which would spur sluggish growth in the EU.