Now, the global economy´s immediate future has been looking a little bit rosier in recent weeks. But looking back at the immediate past is somewhat sobering: the German Statistics Office has just published the newest figures on Germany´s exports for the first half of this year. They´re 23-point-5 percent down compared to the same period last year ... a post-war record. Exports to Russia and the European Union were worst hit. But the figures also show that towards the middle of this year, German exports started to pick up again.