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The Eurozone economic system expanded by 0.4 per cent within the third quarter, offering a lift for a area the place progress has faltered this yr.
Whereas the determine for the three months to September is barely higher than the 0.2 per cent fee anticipated by analysts, the foreign money bloc’s economic system has carried out worse than anticipated over the course of 2024.
Progress fell again to 0.2 per cent within the second quarter, down from 0.3 per cent firstly of the yr.
The European Central Financial institution, which began to chop rates of interest in
June, has turn into more and more involved concerning the sluggishness of financial output, notably in Germany, the area’s manufacturing powerhouse.
The German economic system eked out 0.2 per cent progress within the three months to September, defying pessimistic economists who had anticipated a decline of the identical magnitude.
Nevertheless, the efficiency of Europe’s largest economic system within the second quarter was worse than beforehand anticipated — the federal statistics workplace stated on Wednesday that the economic system shrank 0.3 per cent within the three months to June, in contrast with the earlier estimate of a 0.1 per cent contraction.
The German Chamber of Commerce and Business, or DIHK, predicted on Tuesday that financial output would fall by 0.2 per cent in 2024, after declining at 0.1 per cent in 2023. The DIHK additionally warned that 2025 was more likely to be one other yr with no financial progress.
“We aren’t simply coping with a cyclical, however a cussed structural disaster in Germany,” stated DIHK managing director Martin Wansleben.
The Olympic Video games in Paris this summer season boosted GDP in France, with financial progress within the three months to September doubling to 0.4 per cent quarter on quarter, the French statistical workplace Insee reported on Wednesday morning.
In France, the area’s second-largest economic system, progress was pushed by an uptick in client demand whereas gross fastened capital formation continued to fall. Overseas commerce additionally contributed to the rise.
Whereas having three extra working days than the second quarter, Italy’s economic system flatlined within the third quarter, the nation’s statistical workplace stated on Wednesday.
Spanish GDP grew by 3.4 per cent within the third quarter from a yr earlier, leaving the nation on target to be the world’s fastest-growing huge superior economic system this yr.
The determine marked an acceleration from 3.2 per cent year-on-year progress within the earlier quarter. Economists have attributed Spain’s efficiency to a mixture of immigration, tourism, overseas funding and public spending.
Knowledge visualisation by Keith Fray and extra reporting by Barney Jopson in Madrid