According to the latest rapid estimates on GDP published by Eurostat, the Statistics Office of the European Community, the second quarter of 2007 registered an overall growth of gross domestic product in the EU of 0.3% for the thirteen countries of the Euro zone and 0.5% for the 27-member EU. Despite the slight slowdown of the percentage rate over the first quarter of 2007, if compared with the same period of the previous year the growth in GDP was respectively +2.3% and +2.8%. In the period April-June the most significant increases regarded Slovakia (+2.4%), Lithuania (+2%) and Austria (+1%), whereas the only member state that presented a negative percentage was Greece (-0.8%). Over the last twelve months the best performances in terms of GDP were achieved by Latvia (+11.3%), Estonia (+10%) and Slovakia (+9.2%). As regards the main international competitors of the European Union, the quarterly growth of the USA reached one percentage point (+1.8% over twelve months) and that of Japan remained unchanged at 0.1% (+2,3% on an annual basis).
