The German government expects growth to slow to 1.8 percent in 2005 from two percent this year, and finance ministry experts say Germany is not likely to meet EU budget deficit rules in 2005, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported that experts in the chancellery as well as the economy and finance ministries were set to raise the government's forecast for 2004 to 2 percent on October 25, up from the forecast range of 1.5 to 2 percent.
But the newspaper cited unidentified government sources as saying Berlin expected growth to slow to 1.8 percent in 2005 because export growth was likely to weaken.
The report, due to be published on Monday, contradicted an article in Welt am Sonntag newspaper that said the government expected growth of 2 percent in both 2004 and 2005.
Sueddeutsche said finance ministry economists now regarded it as almost impossible that Germany's budget deficit would fall below the EU's 3 percent of GDP limit next year, meaning Germany is on course to overshoot the limit for four years in a row.
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