Germany falls into recession

Germany has entered recession as revised figures show the GDP of Europe's largest economy dropped 0.3% in the first quarter of the year.

While initial figures from April revealed Germany had stagnated with 0% growth in Q1, new revisions confirmed the drop in GDP.

Coupled with the country's GDP declining by 0.5% in Q4 2022, it has now met the definition of a technical recession, with two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

The revised numbers revealed the drop had been fuelled by household spending, which fell 1.2% in the quarter, while government spending declined 4.9%.

"The persistence of high price increases continued to be a burden on the German economy at the start of the year," said Germany's statistics office, which published the numbers.

German Central Bank governor Joachim Nagel said this week the European Central Bank would still be making "several" more interest rate hikes.