LONDON – A strong export performance from Germany helped the economy of the17 countries that use the euro narrowly avoid a recession in thefirst three months of the year, official figures showed Tuesday. Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, reported that the eurozoneeconomy was flat when compared to the previous quarter —though some members of the single-currency bloc had fared muchbetter than others. The overall flat performance confounded expectations for a 0.2percent decline, which would have put the eurozone back intorecession — officially defined as two consecutive quarters ofnegative growth. In the last quarter of 2011, the eurozonecontracted by 0.3 percent. "The euro area might have dodged recession, but it is firing ononly one cylinder," said James Ashley, senior European economist atRBC Capital Markets. Germany, Europe's biggest economy, was primarily behind thebetter-than-expected performance as a strong export performancehelped it grow by 0.5 percent. However, there are huge disparities in economic performance withinthe eurozone. Of the euro's 17 members, seven are in recession:Ireland, Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Portugaland Slovenia. Though a eurozone-wide recession has been avoided for now, thefigures will likely be used as evidence by those urging more growthin the eurozone. French President Francois Hollande is going toBerlin later Tuesday to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel todiscuss the state of the European economy just hours after hisinauguration. Kickstarting economic growth was a central plank ofHollande's electoral platform. Most analysts expect the eurozone economy to stagnate at best overthe coming months, with its performance potentially hinging onGreece. Over recent days, concerns have grown that the country willbe forced to leave the currency if the country's political classfails to meet the terms of the bailout agreement with internationalcreditors. Greece, which is currently without a government and appears oncourse for another general election in June following last week'sinconclusive poll, saw its economy contract by an annual rate of6.2 percent, slightly better than the 7.5 percent decline recordedin the previous three month period. The figures are subject to change as Eurostat continues to collectfigures. Several countries, including Ireland and Slovenia, haveyet to release quarterly figures and for Greece there are onlyyear-on-year comparisons. I am an expert from custom-printedglassware.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Glass Candle Cups , China Clear Glass Ashtray, Art Glass Perfume Bottles,and more.
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