In the quarterly National Accounts from Eurostat, there was no change to the estimate of GDP growth of +0.4% for both the EU and the Euro-zone.  Similarly, the estimates of growth compared to a year ago were unchanged at +1.0% in the EU and +0.9% for the Euro-zone.  Investment also improved but not by enough to reverse the fall in Q2-24.

In the week of the inauguration of a new US President, Eurostat notes that the equivalent trends for the USA are ahead of those for Europe with quarter-on-quarter growth of +0.7% and an increase of +2.7% compared to a year earlier.

Looking at the latest data by country, only Austria, Hungary, Latvia and Poland saw their economies contract in the 3rd quarter, with Estonia. Italy and Hungary flat.  Three of the countries with negative trend in the latest period are in a recession having had a decline in the 2nd quarter (and in the case of Latvia, for some time before that as well) – the exception is Poland which had quite healthy growth in the previous quarter.  The strongest quarter-on-quarter growth was in Ireland (although this is a notoriously erratic figure because of the presence of the HQ operations of a number of multi-national companies), with Lithuania and Cyprus also at or above +1.0%.

Comparing the latest GDP data with the position a year ago, Austria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia and Romania have all seen their economies contract.  On this comparison, the strongest economies are Malta (+5.4%), Croatia (+4.1%), Cyprus (+3.8%), Spain (+3.3%) and Denmark (+3.1%).

Among the other data published in this release is the news of quarter-on-quarter increases in fixed capital formation (investment) of +1.6% for the EU and +2.0% for the Euro-zone.  However, neither of these were enough to reverse the declines of -2.1% and -2.4% respectively that were recorded for this measure in the 2nd quarter of 2024.

Finally in this item, whole economy labour productivity (output per hour worked) was +0.8% higher than in Q3-23 for the EU and up by +0.5% for the Euro-zone. You can get the full details from the Eurostat website at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Quarterly_national_accounts_-_GDP_and_employment or requested it from MTA.

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