The Eurozone restarts, Italy remains unchanged. In the first quarter of the year, our currency partner countries recorded an average increase in GDP of 0,8%, compared to +0,3% in the previous three months. The data were released today by Eurostat, which also confirmed the positive trend on an annual basis: +2,5% on the 17-member monetary union, against +1,9% in the last quarter of last year. Euroland was once again driven by the German locomotive: Germany's GDP recorded a 1,5% increase in the first quarter of 2011, against a 0,4% increase compared to the end of 2010. France, which saw its GDP increase by 1%, from +0,3% in the fourth quarter of last year.
Enough of the good news, let's come to Italy. Our economic growth remained almost at a standstill: in the January-March period, the GDP saw an increase of 0,1%, the same level as in the last three months of 2010. On an annual basis, the country's economic growth stopped to +1%, from +1,5% at the end of last year. Italy's performance is the third weakest of the euro area countries. Worse than us have done only Cyprus, where in the first quarter the GDP showed no changes, and Portugal, where there was a drop of 0,7 percent. Looking at the whole European Union of 27, there was also a drop in GDP in Denmark, in recession of 0,5 percent.
