The Eurozone's latest business surveys rolled out Friday morning, and France's was a particular bright spot. Fresh PMI numbers for February suggest the bloc's modest recovery is still going on.
Anything over 50 signals that a majority of private sector businesses are reporting growth, meaning growth for the economy as a whole is likely. Under 50 means firms are shrinking, and is a recession warning signal for a country.
Here's what we've had:
- France - 52.2. That's France's strongest PMI score in three and a half years, going all the way back to mid-2011.
- Germany - 54.3. That's Germany's best for a while too - the best in seven months.
- The whole eurozone - 53.5. That's a seven month high too.
It's the flash estimate, so we don't get any more of a breakdown than that - just Germany and France are split off from the whole eurozone figure.
Despite France's improvement, economists at BNP Paribas are a little sceptical. In a note this morning, they had this to say:
One should not draw conclusions from just one month set of data, and we regard the PMIs as one of the least reliable business indicators for the French economy. We continue to believe that the economy has started to recover, but more solid evidence would be welcomed
Europe has had a string of relatively positive news stories, including German growth coming in more than twice as strong as expected in Q4, and Spanish retail sales growth hitting an 11-year high.
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