Aline Schuiling, senior economist at ABN AMRO, points out that the first estimate of Eurozone’s Q2 GDP growth was in line with the consensus forecast, at 0.2% qoq.
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“The result was somewhat more positive than we had expected (close to stagnation). A number of individual countries have published estimates for growth so far, for instance Spain (down to 0.5% qoq from 0.7% qoq in Q1) Italy (down to zero from +0.1%), France (down to 0.2% from 0.3%), Belgium (down to 0.2% from 0.3% as well). However, the largest member state Germany, where the economy is expected to have contracted in Q2, will wait two more weeks before publishing Q2 GDP data.”
“Moreover, Eurostat has not published any details for eurozone growth and a number of monthly activity data for June (for instance retail sales and industrial production) still has to be published. Considering that business confidence and consumer confidence in the vast majority of counties (including Germany) fell noticeably in June, we think that downward revisions to the eurozone growth estimate of 0.2% qoq could be in the pipeline. Having said that, the annualized rate of growth in Q2 is close to our estimate for GDP growth for this year as a whole (of 0.7%).”
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