FRANKFURT: A detailed breakdown of the data released by the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis) showed Tuesday, that gross investment and exports drove the continued upturn of the German economy, private and public consumption, adding to evidence that economy entered the next stage of a typical recovery with increasing self-sustained growth.

While confirming the preliminary estimate published by Destatis on Nov. 12, the gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter of 2010 was 0.7 percent higher upon price, seasonal and calendar adjustment than in the second quarter and 3.9 percent higher on a year-to-year basis. Economic growth was based on both domestic as well as foreign demand as reported by Destatis.

In the reference quarter, domestic uses accounted for the larger share in GDP growth. Government final consumption expenditure increased by 1.1 percent and household final consumption expenditure rose 0.4 percent. Foreign trade supported the upswing of the economy in the third quarter and the overall gross investment grew by 1.3 percent. The export surplus contributed 0.3 percentage points to GDP growth as the growth rate of 2.3 percent in exports of goods and service on the previous quarter was slightly larger than 1.9 percent in imports.

In the first half of the year of German Economy, inventories were the only drag to growth in the third quarter, indicating that the inventory cycle had reached the top. In a separate statement Minister Rainer Brderle asserted that growth of German economy stood on a broad basis and was now increasingly domestically driven, after being initially led by foreign trade. Some economist asserted that the very healthy shape of the German economy was confirmed by the very sold growth numbers. While exports somewhat damped by fiscal tightening and sluggish labor markets throughout the euro zone, they expected domestic demand to continue to grow solidly.