Eurozone Rises Above Expectations in The Third Quarter

With emergence of fresh evidence of the impact global trade wars on the euro zone, officials have revealed that there has been a 0.2% growth in the 19-nation single currency bloc in the three months leading to September.

The European Union’s statistical agency, Eurostat, provided data which showed that the activity had expanded by 0.2% in the latest quarter – this has remained unchanged between June to September.

Germany, the most affected euro zone country by the slowdown in global trade, contracted by 0.1% in the second quarter and there had been speculation that third quarter data due out next month would show a similar performance.

For countries which the third quarter has already been published like France and Spain there was a growth spark of 0.3% and 0.4% respectively, which in both cases were slightly better than what was been forecast.

There has been a steady decline in the eurozone’s growth rate during the year 2o19, from 1.3% in the first quarter to 1.2% in the second quarter and 1.1% during the last three months.

Eurostat’s data for the 28-member European Union – including the UK – showed that gross domestic product expanded by 0.3% between the second and third quarters and at an annual rate of 1.4%.

“The eurozone economy didn’t slow further in the third quarter, which is something to be relieved about in the current environment of uncertainty and poor monthly data. Still, taking the 0.2% growth rate together with a sluggish start to the fourth quarter, according to poor survey data and slightly higher unemployment in September reveals an economy in need of positive news about the trade environment to keep from sliding further.” this said by Bert Colijin, eurozone economist at ING bank.