term benefits. "We'll have to wait for five years until the effects take place," he said, while adding that further reforms to the labour market, including hiring and firing regulations, were still needed. Along with ifo Institut, a further major economic thinktank, the HWWA in Hamburg, on Tuesday lowered its growth projections for 2005, predicting German GDP would rise by just 0.9 per cent, well down from the institute's previous 1.4 per cent prediction. Their predictions for 2005 are well below the Berlin government's 1.7 per cent forecast, while also being down from the 1.5 per cent prediction which the country's six leading economic research institutes to which HWWA and Ifo belong - made in their autumn report to the German government.
