FILE PHOTO: Steel rolls are pictured at the plant of German steel company Salzgitter AG in Salzgitter, Germany March 5, 2019. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer
August 14, 2019
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The euro zone’s GDP barely grew in the second quarter of 2019, data showed on Wednesday, as economies across the bloc lost steam and the largest, Germany, contracted thanks to a global slowdown driven by trade conflicts and uncertainty over Brexit.
Eurostat said that gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the 19-country Euro zone was 0.2% in the second quarter compared with the previous quarter, a slowdown from 0.4% percent growth in the first three months of the year.
The GDP flash estimates numbers, including year-on-year growth of 1.1% from the second quarter of 2019, were in line with economists’ forecasts.
Earlier on Wednesday, Germany’s Federal Statistics Office said that, on a calendar-adjusted basis, the annual growth rate in Europe’s largest economy slowed to 0.4% in the second quarter from 0.9% in the first.
Industrial production in the euro zone area fell by 1.6% in June compared with the previous month, and by 2.6% from the same month in 2018. Economists had predicted less sharp drops in output of 1.4% month-on-month and 1.2% year-on-year.
(Reporting by John Chalmers)
