Household and public sector spending supported euro zone growth in the third quarter as the impact of foreign trade turned negative, the European Union's statistics Eurostat said on Tuesday. Eurostat confirmed gross domestic product growth in the 19 countries sharing the euro rose 0.3 percent quarter-on-quarter. However, it revised up its figure for year-on-year growth to 1.7 percent from the 1.6 percent it previously reported.
Second quarter growth compared with a year earlier was similarly raised by one tenth of a percentage point to 1.7 percent. The biggest contribution to growth came from household spending, which added 0.2 percentage points to the final result, with changes of inventories and public sector spending also each adding another 0.1 points. The impact of exports was zero, while increased imports cut 0.1 points from the growth figure. Investment made no contribution to growth, after expansion in previous quarters.