German economy sees slowing growth

Growth was held back by foreign trade, with imports rising more strongly than exports.

The continued modesty of the eurozone economy keeps the pressure on the European Central Bank to take further stimulus measures.

French economic growth restarted in the third quarter as low prices and borrowing costs spurred consumers to spend and businesses to invest in the eurozone’s second-largest economy. The pace of expansion in Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy, slowed, but France returned to growth. Consumption of services increased moderately (+0.2% as in the previous quarter).

“Domestic demand growth appears to have been generally decent across the Eurozone in the third quarter primarily due to healthy consumer spending as very low inflation/deflation across the Eurozone supported purchasing power”.

Predictably, bailed-out Greece contracted sharply by 0.5 per cent in the third quarter as the debt crisis and capital controls this summer threw the economy into disarray.

The figures are likely to cement market expectations that the European Central Bank will inject another dose of stimulus into the eurozone economy at its December policy meeting.

For the third quarter domestic consumption helped to prop up the growth (+0.3% after 0.0% in second quarter).

The positive quarterly economic performance backed the government’s forecasts of 1.1 percent growth this year and 1.5 percent in 2016, he added.

Later today we’ve got a more – at 9 a.m. GMT Italian GDP for the same quarter is out, and analysts are expecting the same 0.3% expansion.

France’s GDP expanded 0.3% after falling flat in the second quarter, while output in Germany increased by the same figure, but that marked a slight slowdown from 0.4% growth in the prior period.

Mainly reflecting a stronger outlook for the domestic economy, the University of MI released a report on Friday showing a bigger than expected improvement in USA consumer sentiment in the month of November.

The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone blue chip stocks decreased 0.80 percent, while the Stoxx Europe 50 index, which includes a few major United Kingdom companies, lost 0.91 percent.

French President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government is trying to loosen up labor rules to encourage investment and reduce unemployment, which has stayed around 10 percent for years.