Das Kiel Institut für Weltwirtschaft (IfW) rechnet trotz der Belastungen durch den Krieg im Nahen Osten weiterhin mit einem leichten Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft. In seiner Sommerprognose bestätigt das Institut für das laufende Jahr einen Anstieg des Bruttoinlandsprodukts (BIP) um 0,8 Prozent. Zugleich werden die mittelfristigen Aussichten vorsichtiger eingeschätzt: Für 2027 senkten die Kieler Ökonomen ihre Prognose von bislang 1,4 auf nun 1,0 Prozent.

Als zentralen Belastungsfaktor nennt IfW-Präsident Moritz Schularick die Folgen des Iran-Kriegs. Der Anstieg der Rohstoffpreise erweise sich als hartnäckig und belaste die wirtschaftliche Dynamik voraussichtlich bis ins kommende Jahr hinein. Zu einer ähnlichen Einschätzung gelangt auch das Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH), das ebenfalls auf den dämpfenden Effekt höherer Energie- und Rohstoffkosten verweist.

Nach Einschätzung des IfW wird die Konjunktur derzeit vor allem von der Finanzpolitik gestützt. Expansive Impulse aus öffentlichen Konsum- und Investitionsausgaben sollen einen Teil der Schwäche in anderen Bereichen kompensieren. Von den traditionell starken Wachstumstreibern der deutschen Wirtschaft – Exporten und Unternehmensinvestitionen – seien hingegen bislang kaum Anzeichen für eine kräftige Erholung zu erkennen, wie sie für frühere Aufschwungphasen typisch gewesen sei. Die Beschäftigungsperspektiven bewertet das Institut entsprechend verhalten.

Zwar hätten sich die Ausfuhren zuletzt stabilisiert, doch spricht das IfW nach den Rückgängen der vergangenen Jahre weiterhin nicht von einer dynamischen Exporterholung. Konjunkturexperte Stefan Kooths warnt in diesem Zusammenhang vor einer schwindenden internationalen Wettbewerbsfähigkeit: Diese Entwicklung dürfte nach seiner Einschätzung weitere Verluste an Weltmarktanteilen nach sich ziehen. Im Vergleich zu früheren Aufschwüngen fielen die erwarteten Zuwächse insgesamt mager aus, und ohne tiefgreifende Reformen zur Stärkung des Standorts drohe die deutsche Wirtschaft in ein Umfeld nachlassender Wachstumskräfte abzugleiten.

Hong Kong’s national security police have arrested the operators of Hunter Bookstore, one of the city’s best-known independent bookshops, in a move that underscores rising pressure on small publishers and retailers carrying titles deemed politically sensitive by authorities. Police said they detained a 33‑year‑old woman and a 32‑year‑old man on June 24 on suspicion of “acts with seditious intention” and handling property believed to represent the proceeds of an indictable offence. Local media identified one of those arrested as former district councillor and Hunter Bookstore founder Winnie Ho, though police did not name the suspects in their official statement.

Officers from the National Security Department searched the Hunter Bookstore premises in Sham Shui Po on Wednesday evening, according to police and local media accounts. More than a dozen officers were reported to have entered the shop, pulling down its metal shutters and removing stickers from the windows, while checking the identities of customers and passers-by. Police said they seized a batch of items, books and documents they described as having “seditious intention,” alleging that materials on display or for sale incited hatred against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, the judiciary and law‑enforcement agencies, in breach of Article 24 of the city’s Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.

Authorities also said the two suspects were believed to have received multiple remittances from foreign political organisations, and indicated they are investigating potential violations of Hong Kong’s Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance. Convictions for acts with seditious intent can carry sentences of up to seven years in prison, while handling property believed to be derived from an indictable offence can draw terms of up to 14 years. Local reports cited the presence of a biography of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai and works by political cartoonist Zunzi among the titles removed by police; similar books were previously described by pro‑Beijing outlets as “soft resistance” publications when criticising so‑called “yellow” bookstores that supported the 2019 protest movement.

The raid on Hunter Bookstore comes three months after national security officers searched another independent outlet, Yat-Chuen Bookhouse, and arrested its operator and three staff members over the display and sale of the same Jimmy Lai biography. All four were later granted bail, but the case sent a chill through Hong Kong’s small ecosystem of independent booksellers, many of which stock social and political titles alongside general literature. Ho has previously said that government departments carried out dozens of inspections and other actions targeting Hunter Bookstore over several years, even before the latest operation, as authorities and pro‑government media stepped up scrutiny of shops perceived to hold pro‑democracy views.

Ho, a former journalist and member of the now‑disbanded Civic Party, opened Hunter Bookstore after resigning her Sha Tin District Council seat and withdrawing from frontline politics in 2021. She has described the shop’s name, drawn from the Japanese manga “Hunter × Hunter,” as a statement against passivity, and has publicly argued that books should remain “open” and “free” unless and until explicitly banned. In interviews, she acknowledged a climate of fear among publishers and readers but said she sought to maintain a space for discussion within the narrowing bounds of Hong Kong’s legal environment. The latest arrests mark a further escalation in the city’s approach to independent bookshops, reinforcing a message that even small‑scale retail operations risk national‑security scrutiny over the choice of titles they carry and the sources of their funding.