The forecast comes as the economic turbulence unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic appeared to let up slightly, allowing analysts to also revise up their fiscal estimate for 2022.

However, the crisis will nonetheless significantly deplete Germany’s fiscal revenues, which this year have been in free fall for the first time since the financial crash of 2009.

The ministry said the country’s federal, state and district authorities are expected to see fiscal income drop in 2020 by around 71 billion euros compared to 2019, an 8.9-per-cent plunge.

This was still an improvement on the estimate given in late summer, when the drop was expected to be as high as 81.6 billion euros.

For the coming year, the ministry now expects tax revenues of 776.2 billion euros. Before the pandemic, that forecasted figure stood at around 845 billion euros.

The fall in revenue comes at a time of increased spending on stimulus measures, for which the German government is taking out up to 217.8 billion euros in new debt in 2020 – five times the amount borrowed during the last record year of 2010.

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said late last month that German gross domestic product was expected to contract by 5.5 per cent this year, a slight improvement on his ministry’s previous forecast.

However, the economy is not expected to return to pre-crisis levels until early 2022.