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Strong exports offer eurozone hope
Source: Agencies |
December 18, 2012, Tuesday
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Print Edition
EUROZONE exports jumped in October and wages grew only moderately in the third quarter, in the latest signs that the indebted bloc is regaining its competitive edge.
The eurozone's trade balance with the rest of the world swung to a 10.2-billion-euro (US$13 billion) surplus in October, versus a deficit a year ago, and foreign sales surged 14 percent, the EU's statistics office Eurostat said yesterday.
Greece, Spain and Portugal, which have been at the center of the bloc's three-year crisis, all cut their trade deficits by wide margins in the January-September period and Italy even swung to a slight surplus compared with a year ago.
Trade with the US, Asia and Latin America is the eurozone's biggest hope of avoiding a prolonged recession at a time when Europeans are suffering from record unemployment, government spending cuts and falling pensions and benefits.
A silver lining in the Mediterranean is that only very modest wage increases are helping countries improve their competitiveness after a decade-long boom fueled by easy credit pushed the eurozone into a false sense of economic wellbeing.
Nominal hourly labor costs rose 0.7 percent in Spain, 0.8 percent in Italy and 1.1 percent in Portugal for the July-September period, Eurostat said in a separate release.
Overall, eurozone hourly labor costs rose 2 percent in the quarter, mainly because of a 3.3 percent increase in Germany, which also bodes well because wealthier consumers in Europe's largest economy could buy more of their neighbors' products.
The eurozone's trade balance with the rest of the world swung to a 10.2-billion-euro (US$13 billion) surplus in October, versus a deficit a year ago, and foreign sales surged 14 percent, the EU's statistics office Eurostat said yesterday.
Greece, Spain and Portugal, which have been at the center of the bloc's three-year crisis, all cut their trade deficits by wide margins in the January-September period and Italy even swung to a slight surplus compared with a year ago.
Trade with the US, Asia and Latin America is the eurozone's biggest hope of avoiding a prolonged recession at a time when Europeans are suffering from record unemployment, government spending cuts and falling pensions and benefits.
A silver lining in the Mediterranean is that only very modest wage increases are helping countries improve their competitiveness after a decade-long boom fueled by easy credit pushed the eurozone into a false sense of economic wellbeing.
Nominal hourly labor costs rose 0.7 percent in Spain, 0.8 percent in Italy and 1.1 percent in Portugal for the July-September period, Eurostat said in a separate release.
Overall, eurozone hourly labor costs rose 2 percent in the quarter, mainly because of a 3.3 percent increase in Germany, which also bodes well because wealthier consumers in Europe's largest economy could buy more of their neighbors' products.
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