BERLIN, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Incidents of insolvency among German firms and individuals are on the rise, figures released on Thursday by the Federal Statistical Office show.
A total of 1,764 firms were declared insolvent by German district courts in May 2017, an increase of 1.6 percent compared to last year. Most insolvencies were filed in the retail sector.
District courts estimated that the outstanding liabilities of bankrupt firms in May 2017 amounted to roughly 1.6 billion euros (1.87 billion U.S. dollars). In May 2016, the figure was 2.1 billion euros. Even though a larger number of firms were declared bankruptcy, their relevance to the German economy was thus smaller than that of the cohort of insolvent firms a year ago.
A total of 8,404 additional non-corporate debtors declared bankruptcy in May 2017, a 6 percent rise compared to the same month last year.
