BERLIN (AFP) - Germany will abolish a national holiday in a bid to increase growth in its sluggish economy, economy minister Wolfgang Clement announced.
National Reunification Day, introduced to celebrate the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, currently falls on October 3 but will be moved to the first Sunday of October.
The change "will certainly be useful for the economy," Clement said.
"We will be better-placed to increase growth if we reduce the number of national holidays."
Germany currently has nine national holidays, although each federal state can decide whether to take additional days. The Catholic state of Bavaria, for example, takes 13 days.
"In terms of the number of days, we have a high average when an international comparison is made," Clement said.
The economy ministry says experts, which it did not identify, have calculated that an extra day's work will generate an additional 0.1 percent economic growth.
Despite the extra day to be worked next year, the German government is for the moment maintaining its growth forecast for 2005 at 1.7 percent, a slight decrease on the 1.8 percent expected this year.
France took a similar measure this year when it scrapped the national holiday on Pentecost (Whitsun) Monday to help finance a fund dedicated to providing help for the elderly and disabled in the wake of a deadly heatwave in 2003.
The French now enjoy 10 national holidays a year, though among European countries Finland leads the table with 14 while the Dutch have just seven.
The German economy has recovered slightly this year but that has not helped reduce the number of jobless which rose to 4.457 million people in September -- the ninth consecutive monthly rise -- according to figures released on Wednesday.
The unemployment news added further pressure on the government's already tough task of trying to draft a budget that will respect European Union guidelines.
Germany, along with 11 other eurozone members, is bound by the EU's 1997 Stability and Growth pact to hold annual public deficits to less than 3.0 percent of gross domestic product.
But Germany, the largest eurozone economy, has repeatedly failed to meet that requirement and the International Monetary Fund has warned it could do so again next year if it does not take action.

11/04/2004 - 11:48 GMT - AFP