Eurozone falls into recession

New data from Eurostat - the European Union (EU) statistical agency - shows that the Eurozone economy has fallen into a technical recession since early 2023.

Eurozone economy falls into technical recession. (Source: Reuters)

Eurostat has revised its Eurozone economic forecast from a slight growth of 0.1% in Q4/2022 and 0.2% in Q1/2023 to a decline of 0.1% for each of the above periods.

Two consecutive quarters of decline in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is defined as a technical recession.

The eurozone's GDP decline was dragged down by Ireland's economic growth. Ireland's GDP fell 4.6% in the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, Lithuania's economy also fell 2.1%, while the Dutch economy fell 0.7%.

Germany - Europe's largest economy - contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter of 2023 and also fell into recession.

Eurozone economies have had a challenging year as rising energy prices led to rising inflation.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has hiked interest rates by a total of 3.75 percentage points since July 2022 to curb inflation.

The new data also raises doubts about the positive forecasts for the region's economy for the whole of 2023. In mid-May 2023, the European Commission (EC) forecast economic growth in the region for the whole of 2023 at 1.1% in the 20 Eurozone member states.

Mr. Charlotte de Montpellier, economist at ING Bank, forecasts that the regional economy will grow by only 0.5% in 2023.

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/eurozone-roi-vao-suy-thoai-230248.html