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The latest spate of economic data confirms trends that have been observable for some time. While
In the news: Several countries publish their preliminary growth figures for the second quarter.
Belgium comes out at 0.2 percent economic growth versus the first quarter,the National Bank (NBB) estimates. This is less than hoped for and also lower than the 0.4 percent growth rate a quarter earlier, but the growth engine has still not stalled. Compared to a year earlier, i.e., the second quarter of 2022, growth is 0.9 percent.
NBB economic growth forecast
France andSpain also continue to show economic growth, despite months of speculation about a possible recession. The French economy grew 0.5 percent in the second quarter from a quarter earlier. This may come as a surprise after the wave of social unrest in the country. While domestic consumption took a hit, exports were the big driver and drowned that out. Economists point to the popularity of French cars abroad, among other things.Spain's economy showed similar growth, 0.4 percent.-
While the rest of the euro zone is still holding up well, the currency union's largest economy,
Germany , is already fully under the spell of the recession ghost. The German economy stopped growing in the second quarter (+0.0 percent compared to the first quarter). That's slightly better than the contraction a quarter earlier (-0.1 percent) and in the final quarter of 2022 (-0.4 percent), though.
Zooming in: The latest figures confirm that
America resilient
The future: Partly because the German engine is sputtering, European sentiment among business leaders for the second half of the year is rather negative, according to the latest , The rescue may well come from outside. The government in
- "The
U.S. economy is defying gravity," writeABN Amro economists. Economic growth came in at 2.4 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, than the 1.8 to 2.0 percent economists expected on average. -
According to the crystal ball of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), theU.S. economy is going to grow twice as fast as the European economy over all of 2023 (1.8 percent versus 0.9 percent growth, withGermany the only one of the major economies to shrink.
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