Not the weak link now: Eurozone outpaces the US and UK in Q1
LONDON — The eurozone, for so long a laggard in the global economy, outpaced the United States in the first quarter of the year and is widely expected to pick up further steam in the months ahead.
The single currency bloc of 19 European countries expanded by a solid, if unspectacular, quarterly rate of 0.5 per cent in the first three months of the year.
The increase reported Wednesday by statistics agency Eurostat was in line with expectations but may prove a slight disappointment to some in the markets following a run of other strong data. A number of economists had predicted a pick-up in the rate of growth from the previous quarter’s 0.5 per cent.
Still, the eurozone grew faster than the U.S. economy, which during the first quarter expanded by 0.7 per cent on an annualized basis, way below the eurozone’s equivalent rate of about 2 per cent.