German economy likely to return to pre-crisis levels in 2021 - IfW

(Reuters) - The German economy will likely grow by 3.7% in 2021 and reach its pre-crisis levels before year-end, the IfW economic institute said on Thursday, as the progress of the vaccination campaign should help exports and consumption to grow.

IfW, one of the Germany's leading institutes and part of a group that advises the government, revised up its forecast from December, when it had predicted a 3.1% growth.

"The pre-crisis level of economic output is likely to be exceeded in the third quarter of the current year," IfW said.

In 2020, Europe's largest economy shrank by 4.9% due to the pandemic.

For next year, IfW said it expected the economy to expand by 4.8%, which is above the previous forecast of 4.5% from December.

(Reporting by René Wagner; Writing by Bartosz Dabrowski in Gdansk)