Rising household demand and steady government spending kept the eurozone economy growing in the third quarter despite a further fall in investment and a negative contribution from trade, data from the EU’s statistics office showed yesterday.

Eurostat confirmed its earlier estimate that the economy of the 18 countries sharing the euro expanded 0.2 per cent quarter-on-quarter for a 0.8 per cent year-on-year rise after a 0.1 per cent quarterly growth in the second quarter and 0.3 per cent in the first.

Household demand added 0.3 percentage points to the overall quarterly outcome

Eurostat said that household demand added 0.3 percentage points to the overall quarterly outcome and government spending added another 0.1 point. Contribution from inventories was zero.

Falling investment took away 0.1 point from the final result and the rest came off due to the negative contribution from net trade when compared to the second quarter.

The eurozone’s biggest economy Germany grew 0.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter and second biggest France accelerated to 0.3 per cent growth from a 0.1 per cent contraction in the previous three months.

Third biggest Italy slipped into technical recession, recording the second consecutive quarter of falling output with a 0.1 per cent contraction in the July-September period.

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