Lovely story on BBC News.

Germany has found itself 55bn euros ($78bn; £48bn) richer after discovering an accounting error at Hypo Real Estate (HRE), the troubled bank it nationalised in 2009.

The country now expects its ratio of debt to GDP to be 81.1% for 2011, 2.6 percentage points lower than previously forecast, the finance ministry said.

The miscalculation was at the so-called bad bank of HRE, FMS Wertmanagement.

The discovery was made earlier this month but only announced on Friday.

FMS will contribute about 161bn euros to Germany’s debt this year, compared with 216.5bn in 2010.