The potential growth rate of the economy has been low for a long time and the crisis has had a further adverse impact. The meagre growth performance mainly reflects low growth in a number of services sectors; most manufacturing sectors, by contrast, expanded at a rapid pace in the years preceding the recent crisis, on the back of robust foreign demand. The challenge is to consolidate the past success of the export sector and to broaden it to the whole economy by making the policy framework more conducive to innovation and structural change. Specifically, product market regulation needs to be eased to prevent it from sheltering uncompetitive industries; the framework conditions for innovation need to be improved; the education system needs to be reformed further to supply a sufficiently large pool of highly qualified labour; and immigration policy needs to become more favourable to the immigration of high-skilled. Strengthening Germany’s attractiveness as a location for investment would contribute to a higher trend growth rate through lifting barriers to higher growth, which are particular binding in the non-traded goods sector. This would reduce Germany’s current account surplus and make a contribution to reduce global imbalances. This paper relates to the 2010 OECD Economic Survey of Germany (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/germany).
