Germany's gross domestic product (GDP) had expanded by a meager 0.4% in 2013, the country's statistics office, Destatis, announced Wednesday.
Europe's biggest economy lost considerable steam in the course of last year because output expansion declined from a rate of 0.7 percent in spring over 0.3% in the summer to just 0.25% in the final quarter of 2013, Destatis data showed.
Egeler also said that robust domestic consumption could only partly offset a decline in investment and a slowdown in export growth.
According to the data, the rate of output expansion in 2013 was the lowest since 2009. Growth last year came down from 0.7% in 2012 and a staggering 3.3% in the previous year of 2011.
Unlike many of its euro-zone partners, however, the German economy didn't fall back into a recession last year. This was primarily due to strong consumer spending driven by record employment, Destatis said. Private consumption rose 0.9% in 2013, while state spending expanded by 1.1%.
