Partial lockdown in Dusseldorf, Germany, November 15. (File Photo: CFP)

Germany's gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 8.5 percent in the third quarter of 2020, compared with the second quarter, which offsets a large part of the economic setback due to the coronavirus pandemic, the statistics office said on Tuesday.

The increase of the GDP in the third quarter was slightly stronger than the 8.2 percent reported on October 30, and far better than the 9.8 percent decrease in the second quarter.

However, the figure (price- and calendar-adjusted) was still 4.0 percent lower than in the fourth quarter of 2019, the last quarter before the global coronavirus crisis, the office said.

Final consumption expenditure of households and exports contributed to growth in the third quarter growth, it said.

Exports of goods and services surged 18.1 percent compared with the second quarter of 2020, and imports rose 9.1 percent.

Meanwhile, domestic demand, as well as employment, continued to be far lower than in the previous year, dragged by the second wave of the coronavirus. 

Household final consumption expenditure dropped 3.7 percent compared with the third quarter of 2019. 

This year's third quarter performance was achieved by roughly 44.7 million persons in employment whose place of employment was in Germany, a decrease of 654,000, or 1.4 percent, on a year earlier.