Germany, France come out of recession

New figures say the economies of France and Germany grew by 0.3 per cent for the period between April and June, bringing to an end the 12-month recession that has affected both countries.

Experts did not expect either country to emerge from the downturn quite so quickly. Christine Lagarde, the French Finance and Economy Minister told the BBC, "The data is very surprising. After four negative quarters France is coming out of the red." But it wasn't all good news for the European economy; the economy for the euro-zone still fell by 0.1 per cent which means the European region is still in downturn. On the positive side, the fall was less than economists predicted, and the drop was smaller than the 2.5 per cent decline seen in the first quarter of this year. In June, Germany saw its exports grow by 7 per cent, the biggest increase for almost three years. The Federal Statistics Office in Germany said that both household and government spending had helped bolster the economy. Andreas Rees from Unicredit told the BBC, "The recession has ended, and it has ended sooner than we all thought. We expect to see growth of 1% in the third quarter, which is very strong for Germany, and I wouldn't rule out the chance of even better growth." Others were more cautious saying the economy is too dependent on stimulus packages. Speaking to the BBC Jens-Oliver Niklasch from LBBW said, "What we're seeing is the impact of fiscal policy. The question is how lasting [the recovery] will be. There are lots of problems we haven't solved. In particular, the banking sector is still reliant on the state umbrella. As long as it's not clear that the bank's capital base is robust, we can't assume that the crisis is over." Christine Lagarde said a strong export market and spending by consumers had been two factors that brought France out of recession, telling the BBC, "What we see is that consumption is holding up." She also added that a fall in prices and a car scrappage scheme were assisting consumers.