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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (6176)	5/12/2004 3:56:14 AM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Respond to of 116555

French First-Quarter Growth Unexpectedly Accelerates to 0.8% (almost as the US) May 12 (Bloomberg) -- France's economic growth unexpectedly accelerated in the first quarter, expanding at the fastest pace in two years, suggesting consumer spending in Europe's third- biggest economy has helped compensate for slowing exports. Gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services, grew 0.8 percent from the fourth quarter, when it expanded a revised 0.6 percent, national statistics office Insee said in a first estimate. Economists had predicted growth of 0.5 percent, according to the median of 31 forecasts. It's the third consecutive quarter that France's growth has outpaced the average of the 12 nations sharing the euro. Household spending has been more robust than in Germany or Italy, leaving France's recovery less dependent on exports. ``France's economy started to gather pace in the middle of last year and everything looks as if the recovery is going to continue,'' said Christoph Weil, an economist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, who had predicted growth of 0.6 percent in the first quarter. ``We have a solid global environment and there's simply nothing that could threaten a recovery in France.'' The acceleration in growth in the first quarter was ``in line with the increase in household spending,'' Insee said in the report, which didn't provide a breakdown of GDP components. The figures are adjusted for inflation and seasonal swings. Spending by French households on manufactured goods rose 2 percent in the first quarter, more than double the pace in the previous three months. French companies including LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, the world's largest luxury-goods maker, have reported higher first-quarter sales this year.