EU economy grows at a robust pace

BRUSSELS: The euro zone economy grew faster than expected last quarter and unemployment fell to its lowest in almost nine years, backing up the European Central Bank’s move to begin reducing its bond buying despite slightly soft inflation this month.

The European Union’s statistics office Eurostat estimated that the gross domestic product of the 19 countries that use the euro grew 0.6 per cent in July-September from the previous three months and was 2.5 per cent higher than in the same period of 2016.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 0.5 per cent quarterly rise and a 2.4 per cent yearon-year gain.

“The better-than-expected GDP print — along with our lead- ing indicators — suggests that growth remains robust, thus supporting the recent ECB quantitative easing (QE) recalibration,” Morgan Stanley economists Daniele Antonucci and Joao Almeida wrote in a note.

Last week the ECB took its first step towards weaning the euro zone off ultra-loose money by saying that from January it will halve the amount of bonds it buys every month to 30 billion euros. It nevertheless promised years of stimulus and left the door open to backtracking. The economic growth helped bring down euro zone unemployment to the lowest level since January 2009, beating market expectations. Full story @ timesofoman.com/business