Berlin - German Social Democrat (SPD) party leader Frank- Walter Steinmeier is to attempt Monday to boost his struggling election campaign by trying to seize the initiative in economic management.

Steinmeier, the SPD candidate for chancellor in general elections in September, is set to unveil an economic plan aimed at returning Europe's biggest economy to full employment over the next decade and transform it into a model of environmentally friendly industry.

He wants to end unemployment by 2020 by creating 4 million jobs with a set of proposals that includes steps to help small- and mid- sized business sector to secure financing.

But with Steinmeier badly trailing Chancellor Angela Merkel in opinion polls, his conservative political opponents were quick to pour scorn on the measures he has laid out in his 67-page Deutschland Plan.

Steinmeier's jobs plan was a "desperate move to prop up a moribund SPD," said Economics Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.

Opinion polls currently give Merkel's conservative Christian Democrat-led bloc about a 15-point lead over Steinmeier's SPD.

About 60 per cent of voters told an Infratest poll compiled for state broadcaster ARD last week they would prefer Merkel as chancellor compared to just 25 per cent for Steinmeier. The 53-year- old Steinmeier is currently foreign minister in Merkel's grand coalition government.

Merkel has successfully demonstrated her skills as a crisis manager by helping to spearhead Europe's push to increase global market supervision and overseeing the launch of a stimulus package of more than 80 billion euros (114.4 billion dollars) aimed at spurring economic growth.

A few days before the September 27 election, Merkel is scheduled to join the leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) leading economic powers at a summit in Pittsburgh called as part of a push to revamp the global financial order as it faces us to its biggest crisis in more than 60 years.

However, Steinmeier hopes to place job creation at the centre of the election campaign, which is now starting to slowly crank up.

Economists have warned that unemployment is likely to creep up as the election approaches as the global recession catches up with the German labour market and companies start to shed jobs.

But in a sense the SPD is following up the campaigns of other major parties, which have already sought to promote themselves as leading the charge for job creation.

Only the SPD has gone one step further and promised full employment over the next decade should Steinmeier emerge victorious at the polls.

Steinmeier's job plan is expected to include measures for creating 2 million industrial jobs, 1 million jobs in the health sector and 500,000 in the creative and services sectors.

German unemployment edged up less than expected to 8.2 per cent in July, data released last week showed, adding to signs that the country's labour market is managing to hold up in the face of the global downturn.

Until now, German employers' widespread use of government subsidized short-term work contracts have helped companies avoid mass layoffs despite the weakening economic environment.

But the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has forecast that German unemployment will hit 11.6 per cent in 2010.

Despite forward-looking indicators rising recently on hopes of an economic turnaround by the end of the year, analysts expect the economy to contract by a dramatic 6 per cent plus this year after a sharp slump in world trade hit the country's key export machine.

Moreover, as a reminder of the fragile state of the country's economy, retail sales unexpectedly fell by a seasonally adjusted 1.8 per cent month-on-month in June, the Federal Statistics Office said Monday.

Sales dropped by 1.6 per cent year-on-year as the economic uncertainty unleashed by the global recession resulted in German households scaling back consumption as a result dampening hopes that private consumption might help to spur economic growth. (dpa)