Euro-Zone Growth Jumps

Wall Street Journal
September 2, 2010

The strongest rise in consumer spending since the start of the financial crisis in 2007 helped drive the euro zone's strong growth in the second quarter, indicating the currency area's recovery is less vulnerable to expected slowdowns in other parts of the global economy than feared.

In its second estimate of gross domestic product during the three months from April to June, Eurostat confirmed Thursday the economy grew by 1% compared with the first quarter.

However, it raised its estimate for the pace of the expansion relative to the second quarter of 2009 to 1.9% from 1.7% previously. That reflected an upward revision in Eurostat's estimate of first-quarter growth to 0.3% from 0.2%. Economists hadn't expected the quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year estimates to be revised.

The euro zone's expansion in the second quarter was the fastest in four years, and the currency area outpaced the U.S. and Japan, where growth was recorded at 0.4% and 0.1%, respectively.


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