German economists expect SPD members to vote for "grand coalition": survey

BERLIN, March 2 (Xinhua) -- German economists expect around 60 percent of German Social Democrats (SPD) members to vote in favor of a "grand coalition" government, a survey showed on Friday.

Half of the surveyed economists would like SPD members to approve the coalition agreement, according to the results of Economists Panel conducted by German economic research institute ifo and German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

However, 37 percent of the 133 surveyed economic professors would prefer them to reject it, while another 12 percent were undecided, according to the survey released by the Munich-based think tank.

The vote by the more than 463,000 members on the agreement recently negotiated between SPD and German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU bloc is the final hurdle to the formation of a new grand coalition government.

The results of the vote are scheduled to be announced by the SPD leadership on March 4. Enditem