At a press conference in Berlin, Economists from Germany's leading economic institutes outline their reasons for slashing the country's growth forecasts in the coming year, and argue that local shortages in industrial components and raw materials have damaged Germany's export driven economy. In their biannual forecast, the research groups revised down the estimate for 2021 to 2.4 percent, from their earlier prediction of 3.7 percent made in April. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES