Economic institutes slash Germany’s growth forecast

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s leading economic institutes have slashed their forecast for Europe’s biggest economy. They said Thursday that output is being held back by global supply bottlenecks and lingering restraints on personal contact amid the pandemic. The experts cut their growth forecast for this year to 2.4% from the 3.7% they had forecast earlier this year. But they raised the 2022 growth forecast to 4.8% from 3.9%. Germany’s manufacturing and export-heavy economy has been hit by shortages of a range of parts and raw materials as global supply chains struggle to cope with the rebound in demand post-pandemic as well as by higher input prices. The auto industry in particular has suffered from lack of semiconductor components..