In the last quarter of 2023, the eurozone economy demonstrated stability, showing no changes compared to the previous quarter, according to the final estimates of Eurostat. The annual growth was a modest 0.1%, which corresponds to the preliminary forecasts and expectations of analysts. For comparison, in the third quarter there was a quarterly decrease of 0.1% and the same annual increase of 0.1%. Consumer spending in the fourth quarter increased by 0.1% compared to the previous period, government spending increased by 0.6%, and business investment activity increased by 1%. At the same time, exports remained unchanged, while imports rose by 0.6%. For the whole of 2023, the eurozone economy showed growth of 0.4%, which is a significant slowdown compared to 3.4% growth in 2022. A similar pattern was observed in the economy of the European Union as a whole, where GDP also increased by 0.4% at the end of the year after a more noticeable increase in the previous period. In the fourth quarter, EU GDP remained unchanged compared to the third quarter and grew by 0.2% year-on-year, underlining the general trend of slowing economic growth in the region.
