EU, Germany, France and Spain: GDP growing in the first quarter of the year

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– In the first quarter of 2024, seasonally adjusted GDP increased by 0.3% in both the Eurozone and the EU, compared to the previous quarter, according to Eurostat’s preliminary estimate. The euro area data is better than consensus, the average of analysts’ estimates. GDP increased by 0.4% in the euro area in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the first quarter of 2023, and by 0.5% in the EU. Preliminary estimates are based on incomplete data and are subject to further revision.

In the first quarter the gross domestic product of Germania it increased by 0.2% compared to the previous quarter, net of changes in price, seasonality and calendar. At a trend level, however, there was a drop of 0.2 percent. Detastis communicates this. The economic increase comes after the GDP, the institute notes, had fallen by 0.5% in the fourth quarter at the end of 2023 compared to the previous quarter. The Federal Statistical Office also reports that the modest growth is due to increases in gross fixed investment in construction and exports. However, there was a contraction in household final consumption expenditure.

The gross domestic product of France grew 0.2% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the previous quarter. The slight acceleration in GDP was supported by household consumption and business investments, as declared by the national statistics institute Insee which provided its first estimate. In the last quarter of 2023, the French economy had recorded slightly lower growth of 0.1 percent. At the beginning of 2024, the country’s economic activity benefited in particular from the acceleration of household consumption, which increased by 0.4% following the 0.2% of the previous quarter, in a context of continuous reduction in inflation. On a year-on-year basis, GDP rose by 1.1 percent.

Inflation in France in April it recorded a slowdown and stood at 2.2%, compared to 2.3% in March. The «slight decline in inflation is explained partly by the slowdown in the prices of food and tobacco products, partly by the slight decline on an annual basis in those of manufacturing products. In contrast, energy prices are expected to accelerate. Service prices are expected to increase over a year at the same rate as the previous month,” explains a note from the French statistics institute.

As for the Spain, in the first quarter, compared to the previous quarter, economic growth reached 0.7%, thanks to a strong increase in exports and solid household consumption, according to a provisional estimate published today by the national statistics institute INE. The rate recorded in the first quarter is the same as that of the fourth quarter of 2024, revised upwards by 0.1 points by the INE. This is also significantly higher than the forecasts of the Bank of Spain, which expected growth of 0.4 percent. On a trend level, i.e. compared to the same quarter of 2023, Spanish GDP increased by 2.4 percent.