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

- 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 Eurozone figure is better than the consensus, the average of analysts' estimates. GDP increased by 0.4 % in the eurozone in Q1 2024 compared to Q1 2023, and by 0.5 % in the EU. Preliminary estimates are based on incomplete data and are subject to further revisions.

In the first quarter, the gross domestic product of Germany rose by 0.2 per cent compared to the previous quarter, adjusted for price, seasonality and calendar changes. At trend level, however, there was a decline of 0.2 per cent. This was reported by Detastis. The economic increase comes after the GDP, the institute notes, had fallen by 0.5 per cent in the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter. The Federal Statistical Office also reports that the modest growth is due to increased gross fixed capital formation in construction and exports. In contrast, there was a contraction in household final consumption expenditure.

The gross domestic product of France grew by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the previous quarter. The slight acceleration in GDP was underpinned by household consumption and business investment, the national statistics institute Insee said, providing its first estimate. In the last quarter of 2023, the French economy had grown slightly less, by 0.1 per cent. At the beginning of 2024, the country's economic activity benefited in particular from the acceleration of household consumption, which rose by 0.4 per cent after 0.2 per cent in the previous quarter, against a backdrop of a continued decline in inflation. At trend level, GDP rose by 1.1 per cent.

Inflation in France slowed to 2.2% in April from 2.3% in March. The slight decline in inflation is partly explained by a slowdown in food and tobacco prices, and partly by a slight year-on-year decline in manufacturing prices. In contrast, energy prices are expected to accelerate. Services prices are expected to increase year-on-year at the same pace as the previous month,' explains a note from the French statistical office...

As far as Spain is concerned, economic growth reached 0.7% in the first quarter, compared to the previous quarter, 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 the rate for the fourth quarter of 2024, revised upwards by 0.1 points by the NSI. It is also significantly higher than the Bank of Spain's forecast of 0.4 per cent growth. In trend terms, i.e. compared to the same quarter of 2023, Spanish GDP increased by 2.4 per cent.