Despite the sluggish and unstable global economy, Germany can boast robust economic growth and a stable business environment. Thanks to rising private consumption, German GDP last year grew at 1.7 percent. If in the past it was mostly the export capacity of the country that fuelled the local economy, nowadays the situation looks rather different. Consumerism among the German buying public is an important pillar of the economy — and will remain so in 2016.

Researchers from GfK, the Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung, expect private consumer spending to increase by 2.0 percent in 2016. Last year, private consumption in Germany grew by 1.9 percent and accounted for almost 54 percent of German economic output. Growing private consumption is mostly dependent on a positive situation in the German labour market. In 2015, unemployment continued to decline and this shifted the unemployment rate down about 0.3 percentage points to 6.4 percent. However, the situation is likely to chang