German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government expects Europe's biggest economy to contract by 2.25 per cent this year, sliding into its biggest downturn since the end of the Second World War, a report said Wednesday, according to DPA. At same time, the government's annual economics report predicts rising unemployment as the global economic slowdown with the numbers out of work in the country climbing by 500,000 to 3.5 million by the end of the year. This will push the unemployment rate up to 8.4 per cent, officials say are among the forecasts contained in the report. The release of the report comes as the government attempts to step up moves to try to spur economic growth, including drawing up a 50- billion-euro (66-billion-dollar) stimulus package. However, Germans are sceptical whether the stimulus plan will help to shield Europe's biggest economy from the global recession, a survey released Wednesday showed. Conducted for the weekly Stern magazine, the Forsa Institute pollsters found that 69 per cent of Germans believe that the programme agreed to last week by Merkel's ruling coalition would not help Germany to limp through the economic slowdown rapidly gaining momentum around the world. Only 26 per cent of those polled by Forsa were confident that Merkel's stimulus package, which includes public spending on infrastructure projects as well as benefits for car buyers and tax cuts, would help to shore up the country's economy. But the poll found that 59 per cent rejected the government's plans of offering 2,500 euros to car buyers who dispose of their old vehicles in favour of more environmentally friendly ones as not a good solution to the crisis gripping the car sector. About three-quarters of those polled said they had no plans to take up the offer, with only 11 per cent saying they were considering making use of the incentive.
