In spite of a slight slowdown over the last quarter of 2006, according to the estimates of Eurostat, the statistics office of the European Commission, the European average GDP both of the eurozone and the EU-27 grew by 0.6% in the first three months of this year. The annualised growth of GDP is calculated respectively at 3% and 3.2%. The growth is especially due to the boom of investments (+2.5% and +2.6% over the period October-November 2006), in spite of the substantial stagnation of family consumption (-0.1%) and of exports (+0.3%). Good, even if contained, is the figure for added-value imports (+1.6%). The main competitors of Europe have registered similar rates of growth: +0.6 for Japan and, rather surprisingly, only +0.2 for the USA (the worst result in recent years for America).
