FRENCH Economy Minister Michel Sapin has dismissed a U.S. attack on Germany’s trade surplus but urged Europe’s biggest economy to boost its spending on investment.

    In an interview trailed by the financial daily Handelsblatt for its Monday edition, Sapin brushed aside U.S. criticism that Germany exploited an “undervalued” euro to fuel its exports.

    The attack “very obviously is meaningless,” said Sapin.

    But, he added, Germany “could be more ambitious” in investment spending.

    “We think that this would be in the interests both of Germans and the eurozone,” said Sapin, who also holds the finance portfolio.

    Sapin’s words add to external pressure and to an internal debate in Germany about the country’s trade surplus, which has repeatedly broken records since the 2008-9 financial crisis.

    Last Thursday, the federal statistics office Destatis said Germany exported 253 billion euros (US$270 billion) more than it imported in 2016. Exports added 1.2 percent to top 1.2 trillion euros, while imports climbed 0.6 percent to 955 billion euros.

    The European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are among those that have called on Germany to boost internal consumption, which would spur sluggish growth in the EU.

    But Germany’s policy, driven by the conservative finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, is to give priority to debt reduction, followed by tax cuts in the mid-term if Chancellor Angela Merkel is re-elected in September.

    The Social Democratic Party (SPD), the minority party in the governing coalition, has promised to stimulate infrastructure investment. (SD-Agencies)