Euro zone economy growth accelerates to seven-month high in March, PMI shows
Euro zone business activity grew at its fastest pace in seven months in March, supported by an easing in the long-running manufacturing downturn despite slower growth in services, a survey showed.
The improving business climate in the common currency bloc could gain more traction over the coming months as plans for a spending splurge in infrastructure and defence, particularly in Germany, raise optimism for a turnaround in Europe's economic fortunes.
HCOB's preliminary composite euro zone Purchasing Managers' Index, compiled by S&P Global, rose to 50.4 this month from February's 50.2, its highest since August. It has remained above the 50 mark separating growth from contraction since the start of this year.
Growth in activity was still meagre, however, and the index was below a prediction in a Reuters poll for a rise to 50.8.
An index measuring the bloc's dominant services industry declined to 50.4 from last month's 50.6, below the Reuters poll forecast of 51.0.
But a near three-year-long contraction in manufacturing eased and its headline PMI increased to an over two-year high of 48.7 from 47.6 in February. The Reuters poll had predicted it at 48.2.
An index measuring factory output that feeds into the composite PMI showed expansion for the first time in two years. It jumped to 50.7 from 48.9, its highest since May 2022.
"Just in time with the beginning of spring we may see the first green shoots in manufacturing," said Cyrus de la Rubia, Chief Economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank.
"While we should not be carried away by a single data point, it is noteworthy that manufacturers expanded their output for the first time since March 2023."
Faced with higher costs, manufacturing firms raised prices charged. Both input and output inflation hit their highest in seven months. However, prices grew at a slower pace in the services sector.
In a sign of improving sentiment among businesses, employment generation gathered pace this month. The composite employment index rose to 50.1 from 49.2, above breakeven for the first time in eight months.
(Reporting by Indradip Ghosh; Editing by Toby Chopra)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Etihad
4 hours ago
- Al Etihad
No class action for Google privacy lawsuit, judge rules
10 June 2025 23:24 (REUTERS)People who accused Google of illegally collecting their personal information - after they chose not to synchronise their Google Chrome browsers with their Google accounts - cannot sue the Alphabet unit as a group in a class action, a US judge a decision on Monday, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California agreed with Google that it was appropriate to address case-by-case whether millions of Chrome users understood and agreed to its data collection policies."Inquiries relating to Google's implied consent defense will overwhelm the damages claims for all causes of action," Rogers dismissed the proposed damages class action with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought again. The judge also said Chrome users cannot seek policy changes as a actions let plaintiffs seek potentially greater recoveries at lower cost than they could in individual decision followed a ruling last August by the federal appeals court in San Francisco, which said Rogers should consider whether reasonable Chrome users consented to letting Google collect their data when they browsed users pointed to Chrome's privacy notice, which said they "don't need to provide any personal information to use Chrome" and Google would not collect such information unless they turned on the "sync" had dismissed the case in December 2022. She said she oversees two other privacy cases against Mountain View, California-based Google, but the claims in those cases differed "significantly." The appeals court ruling followed Google's 2023 agreement to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit claiming it tracked people who thought they were browsing privately, including in Chrome's "Incognito" mode.
Gulf Today
5 hours ago
- Gulf Today
Why ‘King of Cattle' is embracing a plan to save the Amazon
Manuela Andreoni and Ana Mano, Reuters Decades of ranching in the Amazon have earned Roque Quagliato, Brazil's "King of Cattle," great wealth — and some trouble. His family's immense farms were accused of submitting workers to slavery-like conditions in the 1990s and deforesting huge tracts of the rainforest in the early 2000's. But as Brazil's beef industry evolves under pressure from some of the world's greatest export markets, Quagliato, at 85, is now in evidence for something else: he is the face of the push to fix cattle ranching in the Amazon, one of the world's biggest drivers of deforestation. Quagliato's cattle were the first to be tagged with chips in their ears as part of a government program to make millions of cattle in the Amazonian state of Para traceable around the time world leaders arrive there for the United Nations climate summit in November. "What we hope is that, at the end, the international market gives Brazil a better price," he said at the sidelines of a recent cattle auction in Xinguara, one of the beef capitals of Para. Deforesters, he added, are now "a matter for jail." Quagliato has his eyes on exporting pricier and more demanding markets in the United States, Europe and Asia, some of which buy from Brazilian states but not Para at least partly because of concerns around animal health and links to deforestation. "Brazil is hustling to open high-demand markets such as Japan and South Korea, and improving its traceability system is one of the key steps to reaching that goal," said Renan Araujo, a senior market analyst at S&P Global. Para, which has a herd of 26 million, about the size of Australia's, wants to tag all its cattle by 2027 as it seizes on the global spotlight to become a test for a wider policy and a major shift for the world's largest beef exporter. So far, it's off to an inauspicious start. The law, passed in late 2023, requires that ranchers in Para identify their cattle by the end of 2026. But by May ranchers in the state of Para had only tagged some 12,000 cattle. But the buy-in of big ranchers, like Quagliato, has allayed concerns that "there was going to be wholesale rejection" of the policy, said Andy Jarvis, who directs the program Future of Food at the Bezos Earth Fund, which donated $16.3 million to Para's project. "The success of this initiative needs the farmers and ranchers themselves to be supporting it." The ambitious move, if successful, could be a turning point in the struggle to halt the destruction of the world's largest rainforest. Environmentalists have long argued that improvements in cattle traceability would give law enforcement a powerful tool to choke off ranching in illegally deforested farms from the global supply chains relying on Brazil to feed growing global appetite for beef. While the state's proposal to track cattle individually is no silver bullet against deforestation, it would be a step forward that many thought unimaginable not so long ago. Many ranchers are resisting the program, which they think will take some of them out of business, and few believe the government will meet its goals for this year. But several big-time farmers interviewed by Reuters are throwing weight behind the policy. "There is a cost," Quagliato said. But when ranchers sit down to talk about it, he added, they simply conclude that "we have to do it." The Quagliato family still faces questions over their own impact on the forest and its people. Brazil's federal environmental protection agency said Quagliato paid all his deforestation fines, except for one which he settled, agreeing to regenerate the forest. One of his family members was recently convicted of submitting workers to slave-like labor conditions, though he is appealing. Quagliato declined to comment on these cases. Tagging each cow in Para isn't simply a tool to guarantee animals aren't eating grass where forests were illegally razed. More than anything, it allows animal health agencies to quickly track any sick cattle and their contacts. Data suggests the market rewards traceable herds. The average price of the beef Brazil exports is 8% lower than Uruguay's, which traces cattle individually, according to 2024 data from the Brazilian Beef Exporters Association. That's partly because Uruguay sells much of its beef to the European Union, which has long worked to rid its supply chains of ties to deforestation and requires individual traceability at least 90 days before cattle are slaughtered. Most big ranchers interviewed by Reuters see cattle tagging as an unavoidable path forward, though some fear Para is moving too fast for farmers to adapt and would like the policy to be watered down. Quagliato declined to say how big his herd is or how many of his cattle he had tagged. Local publications have estimated his herd size to be around 150,000 cattle. Ranchers told Reuters they are waiting to comply until the legal deadline comes closer, because they want to make sure it won't be delayed as many observers expect. Some also complained about technical glitches in the system to register cattle, which the government denies. Still, the project has gained support from both the meat packing industry and environmental groups. São Paulo-based JBS, the world's biggest meat packer, has donated 300,000 tags to the program so far. "I'm optimistic," said Marina Guyot, a policy manager at Imaflora, a nonprofit that received a grant from Bezos to help implement the policy. "At the moment, we have political will, which is more than half the way there." 'IT SCARES US' Alaion Lacerda's 50-strong cattle herd at the heart of Para state munch on grass alongside cocoa growing beneath the shade of native trees he planted. He is one of thousands of small producers at the bottom of Brazil's supply chain, providing young calves that bigger ranchers will fatten and sell to slaughterhouses. But, like about half the cattle in Para, his herd is grazing in areas where the rainforest was illegally razed, and he now wonders if the new law will make it harder for him to sell his cattle. "It scares us," he said, sitting on his porch. "We live in a region where almost all producers have a liability." Every day satellites collect visual data on deforestation that the government and meat packers use to mark farms where forests were illegally razed. But tagging will allow officials to geo-locate cattle with a swiping device. The tool could make it harder for farmers to say cattle that were reared in illegally deforested areas came from legal farms, said Ricardo Negrini, a federal prosecutor who monitors links to deforestation in the beef supply. But the program, he added, "still falls short in terms of environmental standards," partly because the tags only geolocate animals at specific moments, allowing ample time for bad-faith producers to move cattle without being noticed. "Whatever you want to control, you can't catch everything," said Raul Protazio Romao, the head of Para's environmental department. "You have to progressively implement control mechanisms that constantly evolve and close gaps." Lincoln Bueno, a big rancher whose family also controls beef exporter Mercurio, said he is not yet tracing his cattle because he fears he may be punished for buying from small suppliers who have illegally deforested plots in their land. "I can only do what I am able to comply with," he said. Convincing ranchers like Bueno and Lacerda to tag their cattle is Para's biggest challenge. It's why the government now allows farmers who have illegally cleared forest on their ranches in the past to clear their records by committing to allowing the forest to grow back. On a recent morning, agricultural analysts from a nonprofit called Solidaridad, visited several small ranchers who they hoped would enter the program. Some were open to the idea that cleaning up their records would have benefits. Others, like Lacerda, were more skeptical. "For me to reforest, isolate the area so I can be legal, I'm going to have to reduce the number of animals," he said. But that, he added, "will affect my income."
Arabian Business
6 hours ago
- Arabian Business
Travel & Hospitality
Founder and Chairman Kabir Mulchandani has always looked at Dubai for primary listing, but a Reuters report says it could be an international exchange
