According to a carefully regarded survey released on Friday, the eurozone economy surged in April and reached an 11-month high.
The S&P Global HCOB Flash Eurozone purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose to 54.4 in April from 53.7 in March, according to data from the HCOB Flash Eurozone PMI survey.
A value greater than 50 shows growth.
The eurozone indices, according to Cyrus de la Rubia, chief economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank (HCOB), provide “a very friendly overall picture of an economy that continues to recover,” but “a closer look reveals that growth is very unevenly distributed.”
“For example, the gap between the partly booming services sector on the one hand and the weakening manufacturing sector on the other has widened even further,” he continued.
The strength of services comes despite the eurozone’s high inflation and salaries that have not kept pace with rising consumer costs.
In March, annual inflation dipped to 6.9 percent, although it remains far above the European Central Bank’s two-percentage-point objective.
Although fears of a Europe-wide recession have subsided in recent months, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) official has warned that Europe’s economy will see a “sharp slowdown” this year.
“There is certainly a recession risk in some countries, but it’s very different from what we foresaw and feared for, even in January,” Alfred Kammer, the IMF’s European section director, told AFP last week.
Germany is the only eurozone member that the IMF predicts will face a recession in 2023.
According to Kammer, much of Germany’s contraction is due to the persistent economic impact of the Ukrainian war.
