BERLIN, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- Germany's gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter (Q3) of this year rose by 1.7 percent compared with the second quarter, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Thursday.

Although the country's economy maintained its growth momentum from the summer months, GDP was still 1.1 percent below pre-COVID-19 levels recorded in the fourth quarter of 2019, Destatis noted.

During Q3, growth in Germany was supported by high consumption expenditure of households, which grew strongly by 6.2 percent quarter-on-quarter, according to Destatis.

The strong GDP increase was "solely due to private consumption recovering while the pandemic retreated during summer," Axel Lindner, deputy head of the Macroeconomics Department at the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), told Xinhua.

By contrast, exports of goods and services declined by 1.0 percent in the third quarter, and gross fixed capital formation in machinery and equipment in Germany even decreased by 3.7 percent, Destatis said.

Economic activity in the final quarter of 2021 is likely to be subdued by the latest COVID-19 rules, which were introduced in view of the record high infection figures. Since Germany is "now again in the grip of the pandemic, output will stop expanding in the final quarter," Lindner warned.

The German Council of Economic Experts, an official advisory body to the government, has recently lowered its 2021 GDP forecast from 3.1 percent to 2.7 percent. Enditem

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