The euro zone economy grew at its fastest in six years in the second quarter against the previous three months to beat market expectations thanks to robust French and German figures.
European Union statistics office Eurostat said today GDP in the 12 countries using the euro rose 0.9 per cent quarter-on-quarter in April to June - the fastest growth since the second quarter of the dot-com boom year of 2000.
Eurostat said that year-on-year, GDP in the euro zone rose 2.4 per cent in the second quarter, accelerating from 2 per cent in the first and 1.7 per cent in the last quarter of 2005.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected 0.7 per cent quarterly growth for April-June and a 2.3 per cent annual expansion.
The second-quarter expansion is a further acceleration from the 0.6 per cent quarterly growth in the first three months and 0.3 per cent in the last quarter of 2005, indicating a further strengthening of the economic recovery.
In a regular forecast, the European Commission raised its estimate for third-quarter GDP growth in the euro zone to a range of 0.5 to 0.9 per cent quarter-on-quarter from 0.3 to 0.7 per cent projected on July 12th.
However, it cut its fourth-quarter GDP growth forecast to 0.4 to 0.9 per cent from 0.5 to 1 per cent.
In the first quarter of 2007, the commission expects the euro zone economy to grow between 0.2 and 0.8 per cent on a quarterly basis.
The second-quarter growth was led by the euro zone's two biggest economies, Germany and France, which expanded 0.9 per cent and 1.2 per cent on a quarterly basis respectively.