Eurozone GDP growth is robust as unemployment hits lowest in nine years
Brussels — The eurozone economy grew faster than expected last quarter and unemployment fell to its lowest in almost nine years, backing up the European Central Bank’s move to begin reducing its bond buying despite slightly soft inflation this month. The EU’s statistics office, Eurostat, estimated that the GDP of the 19 countries that use the euro grew 0.6% in July-September from the previous three months, and was 2.5% higher than in the same period of 2016. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 0.5% quarterly rise and a 2.4% year-on-year gain. "The better-than-expected GDP print — along with our leading indicators — suggests that growth remains robust, thus supporting the recent ECB quantitative easing recalibration," Morgan Stanley economists Daniele Antonucci and Joao Almeida wrote in a note. Last week the ECB took its first step towards weaning the eurozone off ultra-loose money by saying that from January, it would halve the amount of bonds it bought every month to €30bn....
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