Eurozone GDP stays flat in second quarter

Falling investment and a drop in inventories kept eurozone GDP flat in the second quarter against the previous three months despite growing household consumption and a positive contribution from trade, new data showed yesterday.

The EU’s statistics office confirmed its earlier estimate that the output of the 18 countries using the euro was unchanged in the April to June period, on a quarter-on-quarter basis, although it rose 0.7% year-on-year.

Eurostat data showed a drop in inventories subtracted 0.2 percentage points from the overall result in the second quarter, offsetting a 0.2 point positive contribution from household consumption.