The Portuguese economy did not yield acceleration signals in the last three months of 2014 but assured yet, as expected, the first positive growth since 2009 in the whole of last year.
According to the flash estimate of national accounts published on Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), GDP grew 0.9% in 2014 after the 1.4% decline registered in 2013. The last time we had registered a positive annual growth was in 2010, when the economy grew 1.9%.
Despite this result, INE data also show that it is not clear that it is to maintain a trend acceleration in the Portuguese economy. In the fourth quarter of 2014, GDP grew 0.5% in the third quarter when the variation was 0.3%.
But when the comparison is made over the same period last year, However, the growth rate slowed. It had been 1.1% in the third quarter of 2014 and increased to 0.7% in the fourth quarter. This means that the last three months of the year were slower growth than that recorded in full in 2014.
The INE, which does not yet present in this report the data of the various components of GDP, says this developments in the fourth quarter “was determined by less positive contribution of domestic demand compared to the previous quarter, reflecting the slowdown in private consumption.” The positive highlights the fact that the net external demand (exports minus imports) have registered “a slightly less negative contribution to the annual GDP growth, due to the acceleration of exports of goods and services.”
Europe with slight acceleration
deceleration in Portugal arises simultaneously with improved economic developments in the rest of the eurozone. According to the figures published by Eurostat also this Friday, economies of the single currency recorded in the fourth quarter growth over the same period last year of 0.9%, while in the third quarter this indicator had been 0 8%.
Highlights for the acceleration of Germany from 1.2% to 1.5% and Spain 1.6% to 2%. On the negative side, the slowdown of 0.4% was noted for 0.2% of France and the maintenance in negative territory in Italy, whose economy contracted by 0.3% in the fourth quarter.
Portugal that the second and third quarter of 2014 had managed to grow year on year than the euro area average, returned in the fourth quarter to be below average, with its range of 0.7% to not follow the European acceleration . to 0.9%
Among the eurozone countries for which Eurostat announced results for the fourth quarter, Portugal exceeds five countries: Cyprus, Italy, Finland, Austria and France. Greece grew 1.7%.
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