Portugal had the European Union’s worst quarter-on-quarter growth
The increase in Portugal's quarter-on-quarter GDP in the second quarter of 2017 was 0.3%, the same as in the United Kingdom. It is the worse performance among EU's member States.
The 2.9% GDP increase in the second quarter was the largest economic growth out of the last 17 years, when making an homologous comparison. However, if a quarter on quarter (QoQ) comparison is made, growth stood at 0.3%. The performance of the Portuguese economy was the worse among its European Union partners, along with the United Kingdom. These data were disclosed this Thursday by Eurostat.
The Portuguese quarter on quarter growth is half of the Euro Area average (0.6%), and even less when compared to the 28 member States’ average (0.7%). The countries which had the largest QoQ increase were Check Republic (2.5%), Sweden (1.7%), Romania (1.6%) and the Netherlands (1.5%). On the opposite end of the spectrum, Portugal and the UK both stood at 0.3%.
However, the scenario changes when making an homologous comparison. For the last nine months, Portugal has been growing more than the Euro area average, which hadn’t happen since 2001. In the second quarter of 2017, GDP grew 2.3% in the Euro Area and 2.4% in the European Union — an acceleration in comparison to the 2% and 2.1% from the first quarter.
The European economy grew mostly because of domestic consumption and investment, the same as in Portugal. External balance had a slightly positive contribution, which was also the case in the Portuguese economy.
