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Busi­ness activ­ity in the euro­zone grew faster.

 Busi­ness activ­ity in the euro­zone grew faster than expec­ted this month, strength­en­ing the rebound

Eurozone

from last year’s energy crisis and rein­for­cing calls for the European Cent­ral Bank to keep rais­ing interest rates to tackle high infla­tion. S&P Global’s flash euro­zone com­pos­ite pur­chas­ing man­agers’ index, a meas­ure of activ­ity in man­u­fac­tur­ing and ser­vices, rose to 52.3 from 50.3 in Janu­ary, accord­ing to fig­ures released yes­ter­day. «Busi­ness activ­ity across the euro­zone grew much faster than expec­ted in Feb­ru­ary, with growth hit­ting a ninemonth high thanks to resur­gent ser­vice sec­tor activ­ity and a recov­er­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing eco­nomy,» said Chris Wil­li­am­son, chief busi­ness eco­nom­ist at S&P Global Mar­ket Intel­li­gence. The euro­zone eco­nomy has proved more resi­li­ent than ini­tially feared to the fal­lout from Rus­sia’s inva­sion of Ukraine, with a mild winter help­ing to reduce nat­ural gas con­sump­tion, lower fuel prices and allay fears of energy short­ages.

The improv­ing European out­look was mirrored in the monthly sur­vey of investors by the ZEW Insti­tute, which said its eco­nomic sen­ti­ment indic­ator for Ger­many out­stripped expect­a­tions by rising 11.2 points to a 12-month high of 28.1 in Feb­ru­ary. Since infla­tion soared last year, the cent­ral bank has raised rates by an unpre­ced­en­ted three per­cent­age points and com­mit­ted itself to a fur­ther half per­cent­age point rise next month.

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  1. Claire22 February 2023 at 11:52

    Always good to hear things are going better than expected. The mild winter has helped a lot but we are still not over it. Anyway, it's good the EU is doing better considering the invasion of Russia in Ukraine.

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