Indicators of the production activity of two main economies in Europe, Germany and France, indicate that countries began to partly come out of the crisis, compensating the negative impact of tightening coronavirus restrictions, Bloomberg writes.
In Germany, the results of the private sector as a whole put a record for four months, and the indicators increased both in production, and in the services sector, are higher than economists expected. The composite index of business activity, estimated by IHS Markit, reached 54.3 points. In France, production indicators (50.8 points compared to 50.4 in December) were able to partially compact the lower results of the services sector.
“It can be expected that production in 2022 will be restored as the employment situation improves, but the fact that the recovery rate is already growing, speaks of a favorable development of events. Blowing factors in production due to difficulties in supply chain, Apparently, they became less serious, although there are still something to work here, “said IHS Markit Deputy Director for Economics Phil Smith.
Enterprise’s activity data comes against the background of accelerating prices in Europe, which may encourage the European Central Bank to tighten the policy. Officials in the eurozone expect that inflation will slow down throughout the year, and the recovery will accelerate as the next wave of contamination of Coronavirus subsides. Moreover, at the end of last year, inflation in Germany broke almost a 30-year-old record, amounted to 3.1 percent for the first time since 1993. In Russia, the rise in prices for the year amounted to 8.39 percent.