The euro zone economy again witnessed stagnation in the final quarter of last year amid wars, inflation and weakening export markets, Politico informed.
Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency, reported in a preliminary estimate on Tuesday that gross domestic product (GDP) remained unchanged in the fourth quarter compared to the previous three months.
Such figures were mainly driven by Germany, which earlier confirmed that its GDP shrank by 0.3 per cent in the last three months of the past year.
France managed to avoid a GDP contraction due to imports dropping faster than exports. However, the weakness of the euro zone’s two largest economies was partially offset by stronger-than-expected performance from Spain and Italy.
However, Paul Donovan, global chief economist with UBS Wealth Management, claimed:
The difference between -0.1 percent growth and zero percent growth is pretty meaningless in living standard terms, or what the policy response should be.
