Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called a crisis meeting of the nation's business and political leaders, a spokesman said Tuesday, as Europe's largest economy struggles to ward off its biggest downturn since the World War II. Scheduled for next week, Merkel's economic summit also comes as the country starts to gear up for a national election set for September this year.

The talks - to be held in Merkel's Berlin office - are to focus on the economic pressures currently facing the nation as well as evaluating the effectiveness of the two recently launched government stimulus packages, which the government says are worth together 81 billion euros (106.9 billion dollars).

Despite signs that the global recession has tightened its grip on Germany during the first months of the year, Merkel has resisted pressure to consider further fiscal measures with the nation's trade unions in particular demanding new government budgetary moves to help the country face up to the recession.

But a German government spokesman said there were no plans to discuss a third stimulus programme at the meeting.

Among those expected to attend next week's summit are Deutsche Bank chief Josef Ackermann and Siemens head Peter Loescher, along with Deutsche Telekom chief Rene Obermann.

Altogether about 40 industry and union leaders are expected to attend.

This is the second summit which Merkel has called since the global slump began to take shape in the final months of 2008. The last meeting was in December.

Despite cautious optimism that Berlin's stimulus packages and a round of hefty global interest rate cuts could help to pave the way for an economic turnaround in Germany later this year, a raft of bleak data continues to underscore the grim state of the nation's economy.

Figures released last week showed German industrial production falling for the sixth month in a row, dropping by 2.9 per cent in February. This represented a fall of 20.6 per cent over the year.

Factory orders in the country were down 38 per cent on the year in February after falling 3.5 per cent month on month in February.

In the meantime, economists have continued to revise down their German growth forecasts for the year with some analysts saying the nation's economy could contract by more than 5 per cent this year before gaining strength in 2010. (dpa)