US treasury secretary urges Germany to boost domestic demand

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew called on Germany to boost domestic demands during his visit in Berlin on Wednesday. "We think that more domestic demands and investment would be a good thing,"said Lew in a joint press conference with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble, adding that "policies that promote domestic demand would be good for the German economy." The U.S. has accused Germany's export-driven growth model of dragging the recovery of its European neighbors as well as global economy, urged Germans to import more. In a report issued in October, U.S. Treasury criticized that Germany's "anemic pace of domestic demand growth and dependence on exports" has brought "a deflationary bias for the euro area, as well as for the world economy." "We can continue to discuss where that balance should be but it has moved in the right direction from our perspective over the year,"said Lew in Berlin, referring to new German government's plan to launch a national minimum wage and increase infrastructure investment. Schaeuble defended by saying that German economy was currently driven by domestic demands, and Germany has no trade surplus within the euro zone. Earlier on Wednesday, German Federal Statistical Office said that German trade surplus widened to 17.8 million euros (24.2 million U.S. dollars) in November 2013 from 16.8 million euros in October. Most of the surplus was made in trade between Germany and its partners outside Europe. German politicians have repeatly defended against the criticism from abroad on its trade surplus. They said the surplus reflects German products'quality and competitiveness, and a strong German economy was helpful for the Europe in crisis. Enditem