Germany on the brink: Think tanks

A group of leading German economic think tanks said yesterday that Europe's largest economy is on the "brink of a recession" and have scaled back their 2009 growth prognosis to 0.2 percent.

The four institutes held to their previous prognosis of 1.8 percent growth for 2008 and named global financial markets' reaction to recent rescue packages "the largest questionable factor" in the prognosis.

"The German economy finds itself in fall 2008 on the brink of a recession," the institutes wrote in their twice-yearly report issued yesterday.