PARIS: The French economy expanded by 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, the official statistics institute INSEE said on Wednesday, giving France 1.7 percent growth in 2011.
According to the INSEE data, which confirmed a previous estimate, growth in the September-December period was pushed by a 1.1-percent expansion in investment, up from 0.2 percent growth in the third quarter.
More specifically, investment by non-financial companies grew by 1.7 percent in the fourth quarter, INSEE said.
This helped counter slowing household demand which grew by a slim 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter, after expanding by 0.3 percent in the previous period.
Earlier last year, INSEE had expected France to enter a mild recession, two quarters running of contraction, at the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012.
For 2012 as a whole it now forecasts that French gross domestic product will expand by 0.5 percent instead of the zero growth it predicted in December.
The French government last week increased its economic growth forecast for
2012 to 0.7 percent from 0.5 percent and trimmed its forecast for 2013 growth to 1.75 percent from 2.0 percent.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.