With strength well distributed among individual elements, the Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators for Germany rose three-tenths of a percentage point in December 2005, the most recent month for which data are available.
The index has been growing at an annual rate of 2.5% to 3.5% in recent months, a sharp contrast to early 2005, when the index essentially showed no growth.
The index now stands at 105.3 (1990=100), and "the widespread and steady growth in the leading index since March 2005 suggests that the [German] economy will continue to expand in the near term and the sluggish rate reported in the fourth quarter of 2005 is not likely to persist," says the Conference Board, a New York-based business research group.
