Business activity in the eurozone edged up for a second month running in August, data showed Friday, buoyed by strong growth in manufacturing despite the supply chain snarls linked to war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The eurozone purchasing managers\u2019 index (PMI)\u00a0published by S&P Global, an important gauge of the economy\u2019s overall health, registered an August reading of 52.1 after 52 in July.<\/p>\n
A reading above 50 indicates growth while a figure below 50 signals contraction.<\/p>\n
\u201cA sustained solid rise in business activity in August sets the eurozone up for a robust increase in third-quarter GDP of around 0.3 percent,\u201d said S&P chief business economist Chris Williamson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe manufacturing sector is again the star performer, enjoying its strongest growth for four and a half years, with the services economy providing a supporting role,\u201d he wrote in a research note.<\/p>\n
Business activity in the 21-country single currency area grew for the first time in four months in July, after the Middle East conflict triggered a surge in energy costs worldwide.<\/p>\n
The US war with Iran still clouds the outlook, with \u201csupply chain delays again remaining worryingly widespread in August\u201d, Williamson said.<\/p>\n
But he also noted \u201cencouraging signs of rising demand for AI-related tech goods and rising equipment demand thanks to higher defence spending\u201d.<\/p>\n
Both trends were helping \u201cGermany in particular achieve increasingly impressive production gains\u201d, while tourism, notably outside France and Germany, was also boosting economic output.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Business activity in the eurozone edged up for a second month running in August, data showed Friday, buoyed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2480],"tags":[2487,2486,2485,2221,344,29739],"class_list":["post-120730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-euro-zone","tag-euro-area","tag-euro-zone","tag-eurozone","tag-finance","tag-international","tag-mna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}