This page provides a summary of eurozone economic growth for forex traders.  Economic growth is of huge importance in understanding why currencies move.

The first section summarises the most recent data, the second section looks at inflation and interest rates, the third section highlights the trend in the indicators that best correlate with GDP growth.

This page is continually updated so please bookmark it to keep informed about the latest data and trends.  If you are interested in economic growth data in other countries have a look at the US economy or UK economy.

Latest Eurozone Economic Growth Data

Summary

Economic growth in the eurozone has started to pick up in 2017. Concerns about structural and political issues have been pushed to the background as the economic picture improves. The consensus estimate is for GDP growth of 2.1% in 2018 and 1.8% in 2019.

Latest Data

The Retail Sales Index rose by 1.8% in August 2018 compared to a year earlier.

The latest Manufacturing PMI was 52.1. The Services PMI data was 53.3.

The Eurozone unemployment rate is 8.1%

The Eurozone ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment fell to -19.4 (above 0 points to growth).

Eurozone industrial production increased by 0.9% y/y in August 2018.

Flash GDP growth was 0.2% q/q for Q3 2018.

Inflation and Interest Rates

The central bank is the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB targets an inflation rate of below, but close to, 2%.  Eurozone CPI is 2.1% y/y, core CPI (ex. energy, food, alcohol and tobacco) is 0.9% y/y. The ECB lowered interest rates to 0.05% in September 2014. The ECB cut its deposit rate to -0.3% in December 2015. In October 2017 the ECB agreed to increase the length of the ongoing asset purchase program (QE) until September 2018.