The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
German economic growth was the weakest in almost four years in November as both services and manufacturing cooled.
The composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for Europe’s largest economy dropped to 52.2 in November from 53.4 last month, according to a flash reading released by IHS Markit. The result, below all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists, pushed the euro lower. It was down 0.3 percent shortly after the release.
Output shrank in the third quarter for the first time since 2015 as the automobile industry was hit by new emissions testing.
While that dragged down the whole euro zone, the question is whether the slowdown is temporary or more serious.
The PMI points “to a sustained loss of underlying growth in the euro area’s largest member state,†said Phil Smith, an economist at IHS Markit.