Germany is on course to have the world’s largest current account surplus for the third year in a row — a situation likely to put more international pressure on Berlin to rebalance its economy.

The Munich-based Ifo Institute said on Monday that the current account surplus — which broadly reflects the balance of trade between exports and imports — was set to hit almost $300bn, or 7.8 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, in 2018. The figure is only slightly below the 7.9 per cent recorded for 2017.

Germany’s yawning balance of trade has been criticised by President Donald Trump and from multilateral economic organisations, which believe Berlin could do more to stimulate domestic demand. That would suck in more imports and reduce Germany’s trade surplus while potentially helping countries like the US to sell more.