The rising number of refugees streaming across German borders are spurring economic growth in the Europe’s largest economy, an independent German think-tank said on Thursday.
Head of Cologne Institute for Economic Research, Michael Huether, said Germany’s scramble to register, accommodate and settle thousands of newly arrived asylum seekers in recent months has acted like a “small stimulus programme.”
“The state is pumping several billion of Euros into the economy for the care of refugees.
“These expenditures don’t trickle off to other countries, but create new business and new jobs domestically,” Huether told newsmen in Berlin.
German Chancellor, Angela Merkel’s coalition government agreed in September to provide 3 billion Euros ($3.39bn) for refugee aid in the 2016 federal budget.
She stated that an additional 3 billion Euros would be dispensed to the country’s 16 states and local authorities.
Report says Germany’s official forecast for asylum seeker arrivals stands at 800,000 for this year, but that citing confidential government figures, the count could hit 1.5 million.