Euro-area confidence jumps as France rises
paris — Euro-area economic confidence rose to a 10-month high in October after French growth rebounded and Spain powered ahead, pointing to new signs of resilience in the 19-nation bloc.
An index of executive and consumer sentiment in the region rose to 106.3 from 104.9 in September, the European Commission in Brussels said on Friday. That’s the strongest reading since December and beats the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey, which was for an unchanged reading.
The data offer a glimpse of the euro area’s economic performance after the UK’s decision to leave the EU increased downside risks to the fragile and uneven recovery. Diverging growth rates are keeping pressure on the European Central Bank to maintain unprecedented stimulus to strengthen the economy and bring inflation back to its goal of just under two per cent.
“The recovery is resilient, even if the growth outlook remains modest,” said Marco Valli, chief euro-area economist at UniCredit. “Monetary policy is supporting growth, but it’s not feeding through to the underlying inflation trend. The ECB will be much more focused on that rather than growth data, which is going according to plan.”
The French statistics office reported on Friday that gross domestic product expanded 0.2 per cent in the three months through September after shrinking 0.1 per cent in the previous period. Meanwhile in Spain, the economy shrugged off political uncertainty to expand 0.7 per cent in the quarter. Growth continues to outperform its euroarea peers. — Bloomberg