On the whole, the profitability of German enterprises recovered remarkably rapidly in each case. Before Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the profitability of the economy as a whole and of the manufacturing sector climbed to a high level by historical standards. Of course, the war and the associated rise in energy prices will not have left profitability unscathed (see Chart 7).
This applies to industrial enterprises in particular. [9] Gas was already more expensive in Europe and in Germany than in the United States before the war. However, it has become considerably more so as a result of the reduction in the supply of Russian gas, which already began in 2021.