The economic recovery has gradually gained momentum, becoming increasingly more widespread for various components and sectors. The improvement in the overall scenario has boosted optimism among companies, supporting business investment. While manufacturing activity had begun to increase in H2 2020, the services sector benefited from an upswing in consumption in Q2, despite the still disappointing international tourism trends. A wind of surprising optimism continues to blow through the Italian real-estate market, driven mainly by home purchases by many families keen to improve their housing conditions. In Q2 2021, residential sales recorded +70% growth compared to Q2 2020, and +26.1% compared to Q2 2019.
After the disappointing economic growth reported in H1 2021, Spain should record a robust rebound in activity in H2, assuming the health situation does not deteriorate. The inflow of tourists has picked up (but remains historically low) and employment has recovered. Yet inflationary risks are intensifying. With the surge in energy prices, the government was forced to take drastic measures to reduce the energy bill for households, which will weigh on public finances. Faced with a persistently uncertain environment, the government is bound to maintain an expansionist policy when it unveils its 2022 budget this fall, even though the health situation is more favourable for the moment thanks to the high level of vaccinations
Following the gradual lifting of health restrictions, the economy rebounded strongly in Q2 and this dynamism continued in Q3. Despite the favourable economic climate and the satisfactory state of public finances, the political parties are still struggling to form a government even six months after the legislative elections. Nonetheless, the outlook remains bright, especially thanks to the rapid expansion of world trade.
Belgian GDP increased by 1.7% in the second quarter. Consequently, quarterly GDP came within 2% of its pre-covid level. We expect full year growth to come in at 5.5% this year, slowing down to 3.0% in 2022. Increased government spending helped stave off worse outcomes for the labour market and Belgian firms, which resulted in a quick rebound in investment-related spending by all sectors. Private consumption is rebounding more gradually against a backdrop of GDP growth slowing down.
Portugal’s vaccination campaign seems to be paying off. It is the country that has vaccinated the most people in Europe – and one of the most advanced in the world – with nearly 85% of the population fully vaccinated at the end of September. The number of Covid-19 cases has fallen sharply after a surge in June-July due to the spread of the Delta variant. Portugal’s economic recovery was slower than in most of the other European countries through Q2 2021, in part because it was hit by a more severe wave of the pandemic last winter. However, employment and housing activity have picked up strongly. As in several European countries, new risks have arisen as the pandemic wanes
Initially tempted to experiment with herd immunity to combat Covid-19, the Scandinavian country with the highest number of Covid-related deaths has largely converted to vaccinations, and the economy is on its way to returning to normal. Sweden is taking advantage of its specialisation in machinery and transport equipment, for which there is currently strong global demand. Dynamic exports are boosting corporate investment. As the Riksbank prepares to end its securities purchasing policy, the Swedish government is trying to avoid withdrawing its fiscal support too abruptly.
With relatively few Covid-19-related deaths, and after what proved to be a mild recession in 2020, Denmark is one of the countries that has pulled through the pandemic the best. Economic activity has already returned to pre-crisis levels, the cyclical environment was still going strong over the summer months, and the spread of the Delta variant did not pose much of a threat to a largely vaccinated population. The rapid economic recovery is already revealing a few tensions in terms of production capacity and employment. The central bank is not very alarmed and is expected to maintain the status quo, with negative money market rates. The government has begun to better target its subsidies.
Our Pulse chart shows that the economic situation in Q3, designated by the blue area, was almost unchanged from that in the previous quarter, represented by the area delimited by the dashed lines. Recent business cycle indicators even suggest that the recovery is losing steam. The ifo business indicator has been declining since July. In particular, the manufacturing sector is reporting a worsening of business conditions as both activity and expectations are on a declining trend.
For the first time in several months, the INSEE and Markit business climate surveys did not move in the same direction in September. The INSEE composite index picked up slightly (up 1 point to 111), while the composite PMI continued to erode (down 1 point to 55). The activity component of the manufacturing PMI declined more sharply (down 3 points to 51.3) than for the services PMI.
In Spain, like in most Western countries, the 2008 crisis caused an unprecedented drop in industrial employment, the pain of which continues to be felt. In fact, there are almost 500,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2008. Some of this decline, however, reflects an increasingly important shift from industrial firms to service offerings, which is not a bad thing. With the Covid-19 crisis and the EUR 69.5 billion Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), which will be rolled out over the next five years, strengthening industry in Spain has once again become an important area of focus for the authorities. A quarter of the RRP will therefore be dedicated to this objective
In the first quarter of 2021 cumulated amounts of state-guaranteed loans (SGLs) granted by euro area banks reached EUR 376.4 bn, from EUR 184.7 bn in the second quarter of 2020. The proportion of total lending to non-financial corporations (which has remained relatively stable) represented by SGLs thus rose from 3.3% to 6.9% over the same period. French, Spanish and Italian banks have made a particularly substantial contribution to supporting economic activity during the Covid-19 pandemic. They granted 90.6% of all SGLs across the euro area (EUR 131.7 bn, EUR 108.7 bn and EUR 100.5 bn respectively) whilst their share of total lending to NFCs was only 57.7% on average between the second quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021
Although they have eased recently, high Eurozone manufacturing price pressures are fuelling analysts’ concerns that inflation could stay high for longer. There is an impression that the ECB is increasingly sympathetic for this view. This is important in the run-up to the December meeting of the governing council. Whether supply bottlenecks and rising input prices will have a longer-lasting effect on inflation depends on the transmission to the rest of the economy. One would expect it to be higher under a combination of strong demand, low inventory levels and long supplier delivery times. This corresponds to the current situation in the sectors producing durable consumer goods, intermediate goods and investment goods
The Greek economy is recovering relatively quickly from the Covid shock of 2020, judging by the GDP and employment figures released in early September. Real GDP grew 3.4% q/q in Q2 and was 0.6% higher than pre-Covid levels. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Greece has reported the fourth strongest rebound in activity among the 19 Eurozone member countries. Even though household consumption remained fragile in Q2 (+0.9% q/q) due to health restrictions, investment was once again solid (+4.3% q/q). Employment has also reached levels unseen for the past 10 years. Although these figures are encouraging, they nonetheless fit within a health environment that is still uncertain, with a vaccination rate in the country far below the EU average
The new macroeconomic projections of the ECB staff provide sobering reading for savers hoping that, one day, the policy rate will be raised. It is clear that at the current juncture, certain conditions of the recently updated forward guidance on interest rates states are not met. Based on the latest ECB projections, it seems this would still be the case in 2023, even under the hypothesis of a mild scenario. The slow increase of underlying inflation would probably be considered as unsatisfactory. Savers can only hope that the interaction between growth and inflation will evolve or that the ECB projections turn out to be too cautious.
After two quarters of slight contraction (-0.4% q/q in Q4 2020, -0.3% in Q1 2021), during which lockdown restrictions were reintroduced in various countries in the zone, growth bounced back strongly in Q2 2021 (up 2.2% q/q, 14.3% y/y). The growth carry-over is nearly 4% and the gap to the pre-crisis GDP level of Q4 2019 is now only 2.5%. The strength of the rebound had already been seen in survey data from April to June, whether from Markit’s PMI or the European Commission’s Economic Sentiment Index (ESI).
Although the pace of growth in industrial production has slowed, our barometer shows significant improvements in exports and retail sales over the last three months (shown in blue) compared to the previous three months (delimited by the dashed line). The second estimate for Q2 GDP, published on 31 August, confirmed a solid recovery (+2.7% q/q), driven in large part by the easing of restrictions and the subsequent increases in consumption.
The Spanish economy has put in a solid performance over the summer, with a marked improvement in the employment data. The number of workers registered with the Social Security system has risen by more than 410,000 over the past three months, and now nearly match the pre-Covid level. The unemployment rate is likely to fall again in Q3 as a result. It already dipped to 14.3% in July, not far from the pre-pandemic low of 13.7%. Given that a significant share of the new hires were seasonal contracts, we will have to wait for this autumn’s employment figures to get a more accurate picture of the strength of the recovery.
The credit impulse in the eurozone, reflecting the year-on-year change in credit outstanding, remained negative in June 2021. As a reminder, the introduction of financial support measures for companies by eurozone governments led to exceptionally strong but temporary growth in bank lending to non-financial corporations in spring 2020. Combined with this, the slowdown in outstandings seen a year later (+1.9% y/y in June 2021 vs. +5.3% in March 2021) squeezed the credit impulse in lending to non-financial corporations (-5.3% in June 2021 vs. +0.3% in March).
The German economic climate has significantly improved according to our Pulse. The blue area, representing the situation in the past three months, has clearly expanded compared to that in the preceding three-month period (the area within the dashed line). This is most obvious in the hard data for the manufacturing sector such as orders and production, which strengthened significantly in Q2 from the previous quarter.
According to INSEE’s preliminary estimate, French GDP grew 0.9% q/q in Q2 2021. This outcome was slightly better than expected, as we had forecast a 0.8% rise and INSEE a 0.7% increase. Although growth in France was significantly weaker than across the euro zone at large (2% q/q) or the United States (1.6% q/q), it was still a decent figure given the circumstances. Indeed, despite the third lockdown in April, it lay well inside positive territory. The lockdown’s negative impact on economic activity was even more modest than that of the second lockdown.
To determine whether the French labour market has returned to good health, we can use the two gauges retained by the French government in the unemployment insurance reform: 1/ the number of “category A” jobseekers must have decreased by at least 130,000 over six months; 2/ hiring reports for jobs lasting more than 1 month (excluding temporary work) must also exceed a 4-month moving average of 2.7 million contracts. In June 2021, both these criteria were met. The improvement is less surprising for hiring reports than for registrations with the “Pôle Emploi” employment service, with the bar seemingly more easily reachable for the former than for the latter. This first positive sign[1] still needs to be confirmed over the coming months but things seem to be on the right track
Once again, Spain has become an epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe after new cases of the Delta variant spiked, especially in Catalonia. The number of new contaminations could rapidly surpass the peaks reached during previous waves of the pandemic. The days and weeks ahead will tell whether the vaccination campaign is paying off – more than 50% of the population is now fully vaccinated (2 doses) – and whether the authorities can limit the reintroduction of health measures that restrict economic activity.
Covid-19 was only a temporary brake on Polish growth. The economy is outperforming its neighbours’, with a shallower recession in 2020 and an earlier recovery. Credit risk appears to be under relatively good control, despite high levels of participation for the loan repayment moratorium scheme. Supply side constraints are even raising fears of a temporary overheating of the economy, with an increase in inflation. However, a strong current account surplus and the good control of government debt are stabilising factors. Poland’s economic growth potential remains unchanged, even though the prospect of international tax harmonisation may slow down foreign investment.
The Romanian economy is in the midst of a spectacular rebound. Real GDP has already returned to pre-Covid levels, and growth should reach 8.2% in 2021. But this performance has been accompanied by high fiscal and external deficits. Consequently, contrary to the other Central European countries, public debt is unlikely to narrow by 2022. Private-sector borrowers benefited from a moratorium on debt payments, but debt formerly under moratorium now presents a non-performing loan ratio of 10.9%. Nonetheless, the banking system should be able to absorb these losses. However, one factor worth monitoring is the rapid growth in housing loans.
The outcome of the ECB’s strategy review shows that the governing council has carefully listened to what its audience had to say. Its inflation objective is now truly symmetric, which addresses the perception that its previous objective was asymmetric. Three other changes reflect points that were strongly emphasized during the outreach events organised by the Eurosystem. The cost of owner-occupied housing will be taken into account when assessing the inflation environment. The communication will become geared towards a broader public and a decision has been taken to commit to an ambitious climate-related action plan. Now it’s back to the hard work of trying to push inflation up to 2%.
